As is common knowledge, in a typical debate, the two positions taken by the two individuals or teams are the affirmative (pro) and the negative (con). The "pro" side in a debate argues in favor of something while the negative or "con" side argues against something. Given that the debate topic is “Will a two-party system in Malaysia become a two-race system?” there is no clear cut way of assuming a pro or con positions. This being the case, each side should simply present his views as to why it will be “yes” or “no”, and substantiate them with logical arguments, existing or future party/government policies. For instance, one might argue that the two-party system will NOT become a two-race system if BN continues to be the government, but will if Pakatan rules, and then go on to state why. If Chua and Lim have both argued along these lines, it would have been a real debate enlightening all of us about what the stances and policies of BN or Pakatan are in steering a healthy two-party system away from an undesirable two-race system. Unfortunately, the debate ran off on a tangent, with little reference or relevance to the debate topic at hand. The debate literally morphed into a forum with the two speakers merely delivering speeches.
What is most disappointing and perhaps damaging to the spirit of a healthy debate is the beginning or constructive speech by Chua. It certainly set the wrong tone for the ensuing debate. Not only did he NOT present the basic construct of his argument with regard to the given topic, he stunned me and perhaps many others by a direct personal attack on Lim, almost too early in his opening speech! In the rest of the so-called debate after that, both parties more or less traded barbs, with Chua even taking an unwarranted swipe at his arch rival Ong Tee Kiat who is from his own political party! There was no winner in this debate, but Chua definitely won hands down for the number of personal attacks he fired. However, criticism aside, both parties must be commended for their proficiency in Mandarin and their courage in using this language in the debate, given that both are supposedly English educated.
Needless to say, I cringed in my seat throughout most parts of the “debate”. I did find some gems, one of which worthy of a special mention came from the moderator Mr Tan Ah Chye, who said the following for noise/audience control: “We must not only have the courage to speak our minds, we must have the grace to listen to others”, or something to this effect, translated from Mandarin. Yes, the audience was quite boisterous at times, and some of them were overly emotional and even belligerent during questioning time, embarking on personal attacks of the two debaters. In this respect, one particular woman must take the cake. I heard that by lambasting Guan Eng and his policies in Penang, she gained “infamy” of sorts on FACEBOOK almost overnight, and was conferred the moniker 拖车姐, roughly translated as “tow truck woman”. It seems she even had to shut down her FB account for a while, presumably due to overwhelming number of expletives and brickbats hurled at her. It is anybody’s guess now if she will still be fielded as a BN/MCA candidate in the upcoming GE13, as has been widely speculated earlier in the MCA circle.
Now that the dust of the “debate” has settled down, my fervent hope is that all Malaysian politicians participating in future debates – and I heard many are in the pipeline -- will take a lesson from this first one. BTW, it is definitely NOT too late for some of them to view or review a recording of the last US presidential debate, a copy of which should be readily available in the Lincoln Resource Center of the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
