Your comments on the first-ever presidential debate, aired by severaltelevision stations on Thursday evening, which involved the threepresidential hopefuls.

Do you call that a debate? A wayang (puppet show) performance would have been more exciting than this! If this is any indication of how the next "debates" are going to be, they might as well be scrapped altogether.

V.T. Hopkins

Jakarta

Out of the three presidential candidate tickets, SBY is coming out on top. Why? Because he can answer the question in short and frank statement.

Nur Ainun Berutu

Surakarta, West Java

Jusuf Kalla has a better picture of Indonesia, so he is slightly above Mega and SBY. Mega is weak in general issues but she spoke clearly for daily issues.

SBY is very eloquent but weak on clarity and solution. It will be difficult to expect three of them to hit each other like in the US presidential debates.

They used to work together in one team. Culture and common respect make it hard to expect hot debates from them. We will have better and more blood spilt from the vice presidential debate.

Wawan

Jakarta

Two questions. Since when is three candidates answering questions without rebuttal is called a debate? Does the law allow the KPU to sell this national program to private TV stations/advertisers?

Andoko Darta

Jakarta

Even though the presidential candidates were refraining from attacking each other (due to excuses such as eastern customs, ethics, etc), soon after the presidential candidates session finished, we found out that those excuses are just lame excuses.

What we saw soon after the presidential candidates show was real debate between the campaign managers.

I guess it's not so bad. Anywhere, what presidential candidates say is prepared (or maybe even scripted) by their own campaign teams. Thus, I think it's actually not any different if the debate is between the campaign managers.

Moreover, those campaign managers are not so much pressured to maintain their images (at least compared to the presidential candidates). Thus, they will be more willing to damage their images. Thus they are more willing to openly attack other presidential candidates. Thus the campaign managers' debate is actually better than the presidential candidates' debate.

JNF CN

Jakarta

The debate of our three president candidates was interesting. The three were trying to convince that they are good president candidates and it is a very normal even popular way of how their mission will bring out to the people. Who is the best one?

In a discourse level all of them are qualified. It is about promises and commitments. But to say, who is the best, we can still not say now.

Baltasar Mili

Jakarta

Presidential debates all over the world are lead by mediocre candidates on a general theme, so how could one person to be expert in all aspect of knowledge?

So normally they are only expert in their fields and let "the man behind the gun" team to solve the fields she/he do not specialize in.

From a leader we can only expect leadership not expertise on any theme.

So why was Einstein mediocre in politics? Because Einstein was just expert in his special related fields i.e. physics and the violin was his hobby. For the rest, he didn't have the time and interest to learn it.

Believe me, from many leaders that I knew, all of them were mediocre, but they hired and managed expert team members, which is the most important thing.

Fletcher

Pitcairn, New Zealand

Popular

Combating illegal imports of manufactured products

How democracies learn to goose-step

The new KUHAP: A digital code with an analogue mindset