De­siree McEachrane

Blunt, mat­ter-of-fact, with that no-non­sense tone you get from good school prin­ci­pals and cadet sergeants, Annabelle Davis is crys­tal clear on why she's run­ning for MP of the Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West seat.

"I am not a politi­cian," she said straight-off. "I am an ac­tivist. So I am con­cerned about is­sues, es­pe­cial­ly those is­sues that af­fect the most vul­ner­a­ble among us." Born, raised and still liv­ing in St Ann's, Davis has spent years lob­by­ing on be­half of grass­roots in­ter­est groups in her home­town and else­where in Trinidad. She feels strong­ly that the present ad­min­is­tra­tion is ig­nor­ing the needs of the peo­ple. She used the sad cas­es of the dis­placed ven­dors who sold goods around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and a group of farm­ers from La Hor­quet­ta to il­lus­trate her case. The farm­ers once worked an area of pri­vate land in La Hor­quet­ta be­hind the hous­ing phas­es.

"That area was a food bas­ket for the coun­try," Davis ex­plained.

"The HDC bought that land and im­me­di­ate­ly bull­dozed acres of arable land, with­out any kind of con­sul­ta­tion with the farm­ers. And for some of the ven­dors that was their on­ly source of in­come." Davis took the de­ci­sion then to run on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship tick­et.

A lawyer with her own prac­tice, she was asked by the COP to run dur­ing the 2007 elec­tion as well, but de­clined. This time around, she is con­fi­dent that, al­though the al­liance is an amal­gam of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent in­ter­est groups, their com­mon­al­i­ty is what will bring good gov­er­nance. "It is im­pos­si­ble to go in­to gov­ern­ment with one mind­set, that would be tan­ta­mount to a cult. But it seems to me that it's fair that any gov­ern­ment should be re­flec­tive of the peo­ple it rep­re­sents." With the most glar­ing is­sues at her fin­ger­tips, Davis is cer­tain­ly ready to rep­re­sent 'her' con­stituen­cy. When sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers walked in­to her of­fice on Ari­api­ta Road af­ter our in­ter­view, she called them by name, joked a bit but got down to brass tacks, de­spite her packed sched­ule. They treat her with re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion. If she is elect­ed, Davis plans to deal with se­cu­ri­ty, a hot top­ic con­sid­er­ing the ris­ing crime rate.

She be­lieves that cam­eras and bet­ter fenc­ing, com­bined with com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and neigh­bour­hood watch pro­grammes are guar­an­teed to help com­bat crime, and get the com­mu­ni­ty in­volved in its own main­te­nance. Sup­port and re­source for com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices like lo­cal foot­ball teams and a new way of tack­ling com­mu­ni­ty in­fra­struc­ture al­so form part of Davis' agen­da. "The idea is to have the com­mu­ni­ty be in charge of the com­mu­ni­ty. Let the com­mu­ni­ty do up a cost­ing for projects like drain clean­ing and take it to the MP and the MP will sup­ply the peo­ple with the re­sources to do their own thing." If Davis wins her seat, but the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship los­es the elec­tion, she's still not back­ing down. She plans to be "loud and of­fen­sive" on is­sues that the elect­ed gov­ern­ment needs to con­sid­er. "Some­times you need to be loud be­cause what you say may not be what peo­ple want to hear. But the is­sues need to be raised and more im­por­tant­ly be dealt with." The moth­er of two teenaged girls, Davis pounds the pave­ment as an ac­tivist, spends time paint­ing, and has a rich so­cial life. Adding MP to that port­fo­lio may sound stag­ger­ing to some, but not to her. She's do­ing this to leave a lega­cy for her chil­dren, just like her fa­ther did for her.

And even though her work is dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing, she'd drop it in a heart­beat if it af­fect­ed her fam­i­ly neg­a­tive­ly.

"That's my biggest job; be­ing a par­ent."