RISE OF POPULISM IS DANGEROUS BUT DELEGATE VOTERS REJECT WARNINGS FROM PROMINENT VOICES

Sunday 18 March 2018
Debate Chamber at GESF 2018
Dubai - MENA Herald:

A debate on the rise of populism led delegate voters at the sixth Global Education & Skills Forum, to reject warnings on its growing prominence, which was decided through a swing-vote victory.

The motion titled ‘Is the rise of populism a dangerous thing for society?’ was chaired by Nick Ferrari, London-based LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) presenter. For the motion was two high-profile proponents – decorated historian Simon Schama, University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University, New York, and Mina Al-Oraibi, Editor of The National newspaper in the UAE.

Schama began the debate with a rally call to delegates asking them to reject the politics of racism, hate and xenophobia.

Opposing the motion, Geoffrey Canada, President of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Harlem, New York, gave a plea to delegates that the populist wave across a number of countries needs to be understood and not just condemned.

He started with a posed question for the audience, “Why are people rejecting the status quo?” His conclusion was that the status quo had failed them with the 1 per cent getting richer and the bottom 50 per cent struggling, leading to a feeling of abandonment and a perception that whole majority of the electorate are being left behind.

Mina Al-Oraibi, Editor of UAE-based The National, outlined her defence of the motion by insisting populism was about rejection and not solutions.

She said: “The political class in democracies needed to review their practices and get to the very route of disenchantment and voter apathy. Politics needs to be attractive to ordinary people. Accountability, too, needs to be robust in confronting the populist threat; populists say one thing but do another and often mislead voters into thinking their message is one of substance.”

British Member of Parliament and Conservative, Robert Halfon, attempted to offer a different position. Although he was part of the ‘Remain’ lobby during the Brexit vote, 68 per cent of his constituents voted to leave and this needed to be recognised as not necessarily part of the populist wave – but a yearning to take back control.

Halfon’s final argument was based around the concept of ‘political authenticity’. There was something attractive to voters about populist figures who speak to hearts and minds – those who have struggled with the evolving nature of globalisation and who have been left behind by market forces needed a towering figure who had a genuine interest in them – the voter.

A vote was taken before the debate to garner the opinions of delegates with 68 per cent of those in attendance in agreement with the motion. By the end, however, the opponents – Geoffrey Canada and Robert Halfon MP – had successfully persuaded 4 per cent of the undecided vote to back them, meaning they secured victory on the debate’s ‘swing-victory’ rule increasing their vote share from 14 per cent to 18 per cent.

The debate concluded with all four speakers recognising that a populist threat had gripped global politics, but the approach to confronting this trend could take a number of different forms; while the arguments for empowerment and inclusion in the democratic process had to be stronger and more robust.

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