The two main political parties expressed disappointment after multiparty talks to hold a televised debate for mayoral candidates broke down amid disagreements over the format and which participants would be invited.
The plan, originally announced in July, would have seen representatives from the four largest newspapers in the nation and the Central News Agency (CNA) jointly prepare the debate before the Nov. 27 special municipality elections.
“It’s regrettable ... [we] had always been very supportive of debates and feel that it would have let candidates clearly show their election policies,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesperson Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said on Sunday.
Public Television Service (PTS) is now the only broadcaster still planning the talks after the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper),t he United Daily News and the Apple Daily announced on Friday they were pulling out.
Two other news organizations, the China Times daily and the CNA also announced earlier they would abandon the plan.
The committee was reportedly unable to forge a compromise between the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) after the two parties disagreed on whether media representatives would be allowed to ask questions.
The opposition party had originally hoped that only candidates would be allowed to query other participants in the debate. DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) on Sunday said the party believed it was the “simplest method and also the fairest method.”
In the final statement signed by the three dailies along with two other organizers, newtalk.tw and a community university promotion group, it said that organizers and the two parties had different ideas about how the debate would be carried out.
Speaking against the DPP’s proposal, the statement also said “we do not believe that simply having candidates ask each other [questions] and making up their own issues will fulfill the public’s expectations of the debate.”
The statement also protected the involvement of newtalk.tw, a social news Web site, and the community university promotion group by saying the public deserved a say in the planning process, rejecting requests from the KMT that the two be taken off the organizing team.
“Because of these ... differences, we were unable to arrive at a compromise and regrettably cannot fulfill the public’s expectations,” the statement said.
It is currently unclear whether the debate will still go ahead as planned. Both the KMT and the DPP have signaled that they are willing to return to the bargaining table with PTS over the format of the talks.
“We still hope we can reach a consensus and that the special municipality debates can go ahead as planned,” Su said.
DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said she hoped the two parties could take another look at why the talks failed, adding: “We still hope that there is a chance to exchange opinions with the [public].”
If held, the debate would be the second major political exchange held this year after Tsai and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) traded talking points on PTS over the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in April.
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