San Fernando West independent candidate, Jowelle De Souza, insists that her turn at the polls on September 7 "will be the first and the last time that I am into this."
The 41-year-old hair stylist, philanthropist and animal welfare activist says her decision to run came about a year ago when she detected a high level of dissatisfaction with the quality of representation in the constituency.
She however admits to have been "born into the UNC (United National Congress) family" and still gives the People's Partnership administration, on a scale of one to ten, a "seven" and the People's National Movement (PNM) a "zero" for acceptability.
"I honestly thought that we the people of San Fernando...were so completely fed-up of the way politics ran in T&T that we were really ready to vote for an independent to show the rest of the country that we are going put the first independent in the House of Representative to be able to do what is right for the country," De Souza told T&T Guardian at her San Fernando salon.
"Yet a year down the line I still find that people talk about party politics," she added. "But we have until September 8 to see if that is so."
In light of this, what does the San Fernando West candidate consider to be her chance of winning?
"As of now, I see two political parties frustrating the life out of T&T...but you can never tell," she replied.
De Souza's campaign focuses almost exclusively on development priorities for the constituency and the city's waterfront plans are high up on the agenda.
"We are a dying city," she contended. "In the last 15 years we have deteriorated."
But the 41-year-old candidate also has strong views on some of the headline issues she can be expected to confront should she win the seat.
She believes, for example, that parliamentarians should not also be permitted to hold ministerial positions and this should be reflected in the country's constitution. In her case, she suggests, this question would not arise since she would have no political leader to dictate to her.
"The government has veto power, so if the prime minister says to take a ministerial position, you take a ministerial position, and as an MP one would suffer," she said.
De Souza will also not stand in the way of the death penalty. "We have a very bad and a very high crime rate here in Trinidad and I support the death penalty 100 per cent," she said.
The popular southern hair stylist is also an advocate of diversifying the economy by further ventures into the tourism and financial services sector, citing Caribbean countries such as Sint Maarten, Curacao and the Cayman Islands.
On the question of "marriage equality", or "same-sex marriage", as recently ruled by the US Supreme Court, she is more reticent and describes the issue as "tender".
"T&T has no cases of that as we speak," she said. "It would be premature of me to come here now and discuss that when there has been no precedent.
"I will tell you that there will be no one coming with that in the forefront right now," De Souza said. "We are not a First World nation. I don't think that people are thinking of that."
She however concedes that "there are people who live together."
"They are very happy with that and so it makes me happy that they are happy with that," she added. "It is a premature thing to think about it."
The San Fernando West candidate benefited from sex reassignment surgery in 1993 and her candidacy has reportedly raised eyebrows in some quarters.
De Souza has however been nationally recognised for her work as an animal rights activist, winning a Humming Bird Medal (Bronze) in 2014.
"One of the criteria for first world nation is how we treat our animals," she said. "It is a very high priority (and) in every good (holy) book they speak about animals.
"I put my animals first in my life, and everybody else..." she smiles broadly and does not finish the sentence. She however plans to complete the elections course, win, lose or draw.
