ABP 2012: NUS Recovers Trophy, Waseda Beats Indonesians For EFL

The 2012 Asian British Parliamentary Debating Championship, Jakarta's first major international tournament, ended last night with National University of Singapore winning back the trophy that the school won in 2010 and Japan's Waseda University surpassing three Indonesian teams in the EFL final. Go to website for complete team and individual scores.

#1 NUS1 (Kelvin Chong & Xiao Hongyu) from Opening Opposition defeated #2 Korea University 1 (Jeesoo Kang & Jaeyong Shin), #5 Universiti Teknologi Mara (Maizura Mokhsein & Atiqah Zaki) and #7 National Law School of India University 1 (Anil Sebastian & Aniruddha Basu) in the grand final that debated the motion "THBT democratic states should hold a referendum before engaging in a military intervention". NUS championed ABP 2010 and then broke first in ABP 2011 but failed to win the grand final. The debate also produced an interesting fact. For the third consecutive time, UT Mara's Maizura Mokhsein debated in the final as Opening Government and came short from taking the trophy.

In the EFL category, #5 Waseda2 (Junko Nakano & Takenori Hayashi) spoiled the party for Indonesian debaters after outshining #1 Universitas Indonesia 1 (Dennys Kapa & Elghafiky Bimardhika), #3 Binus University (Rosmiyana & Sabarudin Adinugroho) and #6 Universitas Gadjah Mada (Cinantyan Punjung & Wida Wahyuni) in a final that focused on whether the Nobel Peace Prize has lost its purpose. Like the overall champion, the EFL winner debated from Opening Opposition.

The best overall and EFL speakers did not come from the teams above. Syed Saddiq from #8 International Islamic University 1 topped the tab, a consolation for losing in the quarterfinal. Fumihiko Sano from #14 University of Tokyo 1 was the best EFL speaker but his team's break into the main elimination round made him skip the category's separate debates.