Tonight’s debate: Are the gladiators on TV or orators whose aim is to convince us to vote for them?

Tonight, the two candidates for the mayorship of Istanbul are meeting for a debate on screen one week before the re-run. They will respond to questions of the moderator who is a journalist. The program will last 150 minutes, each of the candidates will have a three-minute time limit for each question, and the program will be broadcast by all television channels that wish to air the debate.

Given that the race between the two candidates is for the mayorship of Istanbul, the debate would normally be expected to be an ordinary event arousing curiosity and interest only in city-dwellers.

But, is it so? Of course it is not. Because of the enermous nationwide interest for the re-run election, the debate may set an all-time rating record for a single broadcast.

It interests everybody

My peers would remember the boxing matches of Muhammad Ali in the USA that could be viewed live in the dead of the night in our country due to the time difference between Turkey and the USA. We would get up around the broadcast time, settle in front of the television, and watch the matches attentively from beginning to end.

This political confrontation seems to have reached a similar public interest level.