By Nick Dazang
Power wielders/seekers and the media exist in mutual antagonism. They have a love-hate relationship. In spite of this antagonism, they are kindred spirits, of sorts. They find congruence in good governance and what advances humanity. By law, and in a democratic dispensation, the media are expected to rein in the predilection of power wielders to overreach themselves and abuse their offices. They are expected to hold power holders to account. By the same token, the power wielders and politicians need the media to secure visibility and to communicate their visions and agenda.
In democracies, the media helps politicians grab the limelight. Also, the media and their owners endorse and project candidates, who, in their views, possess exalted visions and the requisite character and capacity. For instance, the media made it possible for the eloquent, svelte and sartorially elegant John F. Kennedy to trounce Richard Nixon in the first ever televised presidential debate on September 26, 1960.
Nixon, who became U.S. President much later, was promoted by the owners of the Los Angeles Times as a political wunderkind – until the gloss came off with the Watergate scandal. Whereas the media ravens had hitherto restricted themselves to promoting candidates who shared their lofty values and visions, we began to see a crossing of the line with the advent of Phil Graham as the Publisher of the Washington Post.
Under Graham’s watch, not only did the Washington Post endorse candidates, but Graham also inserted himself in presidential politics.
In our clime, the romance between the media and political power is not different. The media are literally the oxygen on which politicians thrive. Politicians cultivate the media and use their platforms to reach out to voters. The media in turn make their platforms available in order to encourage robust conversations around the agenda of the candidates, to hold them up for scrutiny, to make it possible for voters to make informed choices, and to subsequently hold office wielders to account for the promises which they made on the hustings.
To facilitate the aforementioned and to make our electoral process even more muscular and engaging, not a few media houses have instituted townhall meetings and sundry platforms for candidates to debate and sell their agenda to the electorate ahead of the 2023 general elections. Unfortunately, and in spite of the well known propensity of politicians to latch onto these opportunities to market themselves, these debates have either been shunned, like the leper, or generated unnecessary controversies. Some of the candidates would prefer either to address rallies, in which all they need to do is to salute an obsequious and fawning crowd, most of it rented, or to address other august and prestigious platforms abroad.
There is no doubt that some of the candidates are avoiding the debates, like the plague, for the very reason that they lack intellectual gravitas and acumen. Some are gaffe-prone, while others feel the platforms are beneath them or contrived by their traducers to undermine them. On account of these, their handlers would rather that they avoided them.
There is no law that requires a candidate to participate in a debate. Even in advanced democracies, where a considerable premium is laid on political debates, we have recently witnessed a telling instance where during the American midterm elections, John Fetterman, who won the Senate seat for Pennsylvania, refused to debate the slick and telegenic Dr. Mehmet Oz.
But even then, Fetterman could be pardoned because he was recovering from a life-threatening stroke and his handlers must have feared that a rigorous debate would diminish his performance or impair his health.
It is instructive that in our case, our candidates, especially the older ones, continue to insist that they are in fine fettle. They post out pictures of themselves working out in gyms. In fact, the handlers of one of the candidates insist that he is “as fit as a fiddle”! If so, why has he shunned the local debates in preference for a soft landing abroad, where the said candidate undid himself by outsourcing his responsibility to lackeys and minions?
Even though no law compels a candidate to participate in a debate or town hall, his avoiding such a platform speaks volumes and does irreparable harm to his image. First, the impression is being created, willy-nilly, that either he lacks capacity or intellect.
Second, it suggests, rightly or wrongly, that there may be something the candidate is hiding and, therefore, is running away from scrutiny. Third, assuming the candidate is trying to hide a deficiency or peccadillo, the voters will not only take more than a casual notice, they are most likely to take a dim view of the candidate.
Fourth, voters and other stakeholders in the electoral process are likely to view such a candidate as condescending and supercilious. Fifth, arising from all these, voters are most likely to arrive at the conclusion that such a candidate is inept. Sixth, and compounding the above, voters are likely going to wonder if the candidate, were he to eventually win, would prefer to play to a foreign audience rather than their own.
From the foregoing, the case for partaking in these debates far outweighs the ones, if any, for avoiding them. Candidates and their handlers must reconsider their positions immediately. These platforms remain the best opportunities for them to market themselves and their agendas. Rather than haughtily avoid them, the candidates should humble themselves by allowing their handlers to prepare and coach them in advance of such debates.
Handlers should be able to anticipate questions that may be asked. They should make available information and talking points which the candidates can refer to and run with. Rather than for candidates to flee from debates and render our campaigns humdrum and devoid of substance and colour, both – candidates and their handlers-should do as their professions and callings demand.
When candidates flee from debates, they short-change themselves by unwittingly insinuating that they are not up to the task. This writer’s response to this defeatist attitude is a time-honoured saying:” If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”!
*Dazang is a commentator on public issues
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