The dream of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form that re­quires MPs to con­sult their con­stituents be­fore vot­ing in Par­lia­ment and ref­er­en­dums on na­tion­al is­sues are be­ing of­fered by T&T’s newest po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty.

With for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Nicholai Ed­wards lead­ing the charge, the par­ty is seek­ing to change the sta­tus quo of gov­er­nance by in­clud­ing young peo­ple in de­ci­sion mak­ing.

At the par­ty’s launch on Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, Ed­wards ap­pealed to cit­i­zens to take ac­tion, step out of their com­fort zones and chal­lenge the sta­tus quo.

He said the Pro­gres­sives, as the par­ty will be more pop­u­lar­ly known, con­test all con­stituen­cies in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, with the can­di­dates to be se­lect­ed by cit­i­zens who join the par­ty.

Ed­wards said the par­ty has no for­mer politi­cian as it is seek­ing to pro­vide T&T with fresh faces for a fresh start.

“We are not here to play games as that has been our re­al­i­ty for far too long. We are a se­ri­ous par­ty with se­ri­ous sup­port­ers who are se­ri­ous about the peo­ple of our coun­try,” he said.

In its vi­sion for T&T, the par­ty wants the ex­ec­u­tive, leg­isla­tive and ju­di­cial arms of the State to be sep­a­rat­ed. Ed­wards said the coun­try can­not con­tin­ue to have the same MPs hold­ing them­selves ac­count­able as Cab­i­net Min­is­ters, while the Ju­di­cia­ry walks on eggshells to en­sure it gets a prop­er bud­get. He said it was not the role of an MP to fix roads and build drains but to rep­re­sent cit­i­zens’ views in the Par­lia­ment every time a bill is be­ing de­bat­ed.

“How many times has your MP come and asked you how you’d want her or him to vote on a bill? We see our MPs stand­ing proud­ly and rep­re­sent­ing their par­ties, but what about the peo­ple? We must change this. We need ref­er­en­dums in our law to en­sure that when MPs fail to make de­ci­sions on our be­half in our best in­ter­est, we can make those de­ci­sions on our own through a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic vote,” he said.

“We al­so need the right to re­call done prop­er­ly so that we can hold our MPs ac­count­able. They must an­swer to the peo­ple of this coun­try who put them there, not just their po­lit­i­cal leader.”

In out­lin­ing the par­ty’s poli­cies, Ed­wards said rather than clos­ing T&T’s bor­ders, a sys­tem must be de­vel­oped to pro­tect against il­le­gal drugs and im­mi­grants.

In the health sec­tor, cit­i­zens should no longer be dy­ing in the wait­ing ar­eas of hos­pi­tal emer­gency rooms and that there should be eq­ui­table, ac­ces­si­ble and com­pre­hen­sive health pro­grammes for cit­i­zens, he said.

Ed­wards promised that stu­dents will be pro­vid­ed with re­sources to ac­cess and cre­ate sus­tain­able jobs and agri­cul­ture will be de­vel­oped in­to a thriv­ing in­dus­try.

“The Pro­gres­sive Par­ty is an or­gan­i­sa­tion which seeks not to build its foun­da­tions on the fail­ings of oth­er po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions but rather har­ness the po­ten­tial and strength of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go which have been over­looked for far too long,” he said.

Our pre­rog­a­tive isn’t to sim­ply re­move a gov­ern­ment. That’s short term think­ing. We want to pro­vide the best rep­re­sen­ta­tion pos­si­ble. We want to unite this coun­try and we want to en­sure that this na­tion’s pros­per­i­ty is felt by all, not just some, but by every sin­gle cit­i­zen who has the ho­n­our of call­ing this place home.”