This year’s World Universities Debating Council decided for Malaysia to host the World Universities Debating Championships 2015. After Chennai in 2014, debaters will fly to Southeast Asia in order to experience world class debating.

The decision of the council in which all nations are represented that attended WUDC for two consecutive was close: the second bid from Auckland, New Zealand, got 42 votes while Malaysia got 57 votes. The arguments for Malaysia were mostly that it is more accessible for most participants and the registration fee would be significantly cheaper.

Teresa Widlok, representative of the German WUDC delegation, tells us that despite of this defeat, Auckland was strongly encouraged to consider to represent their bid again in the next year for 2016. “Both bids were of high quality with significant support from local communities and governments.” One issue for the Malaysians, however, was thoroughly discussed: As Israel and Malaysia do not hold diplomatic relations it was impossible for Israelis to get visa for Malaysia at previous tournaments. To face this issue, a government official was accompanying the Malaysian delegation. “He assured that the government will guarantee that Israeli debaters will be able to travel to Malaysia”, says Teresa.

Both bids apparently came from professional institutions, especially the Malaysian one. “This is a main reason why the German vote went to New Zealand”, tells us Teresa. “We do not want the WUDC to become an event that gets so big and luxurious that it can’t be organized by normal student debating societies any more.”

“Especially”, says Teresa, “we fear that it will become impossible for developed countries to become WUDC organizers. In most of these countries, governments do not sponsor such events as much as in developing countries as we have seen it in Manila and like it will be the case for Chennai. And we still think that the Championships should take place in developed areas like Europe, too.“

“However”, Teresa adds, “we are looking forward to the WUDC 2015 in Malaysia and we are sure that it will be a great tournament.”

The bid video is available online here. The Malaysian WUDC are organized by the UT MARA Debating Society Malaysia together with the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia and the Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB). Convener will be Mai Mokhsein.

As chief adjudicators will serve Jonathan Maynard and Shafiq Bazari.

Text: pst / ama