Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) has of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced its in­ten­tion to con­test all 141 seats in the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. How­ev­er, PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der says the par­ty plans to form al­liances with var­i­ous sup­port and ac­tion groups across Trinidad and To­ba­go, rather than fa­cil­i­tat­ing coali­tions with ex­ist­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

One of the al­liances be­ing formed is with the Re-Unit­ed Farm­ers’ Al­liance, a group that has been ac­tive for over four years and fo­cus­es on sup­port­ing food crop farm­ers and em­ploy­ees of Ca­roni 1975 Lim­it­ed.

The Re-Unit­ed Farm­ers Al­liance re­cent­ly reg­is­tered as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and is pre­pared to join forces with the PEP in the fight for the Au­gust 14th Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion.

Dur­ing a launch at the Movi­eTowne Ban­quet Hall at In­vaders Bay yes­ter­day, Alexan­der em­pha­sised that PEP would be en­gag­ing with oth­er in­ter­est groups to cre­ate a strong coali­tion for the elec­tions.

He al­so said, at present, the coali­tion of­fer from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is not con­sid­ered fea­si­ble.

Look­ing at how his al­liance will go for­ward, Alexan­der said the two par­ties will share seats at var­i­ous cor­po­ra­tions and each par­ty will place their sym­bols for their con­test­ing ar­eas.

Ex­press­ing con­cerns about the po­ten­tial vote split­ting, Alexan­der said, “I think the PNM should al­so be very con­cerned about split­ting the vote. The peo­ple are very un­hap­py with the PNM right now, and split­ting the vote and tak­ing votes is how pol­i­tics is sup­posed to work. What is sup­posed to end up in gov­ern­ment are the peo­ple who cap­ture the most votes.”

He added, “The UNC tra­di­tion­al­ly has been a bit weak in the last cou­ple of elec­tions, and that’s up to them to sort out. The vot­ers want rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and they shouldn’t be stuck play­ing ee­ny, mee­ny, miny, moe. They should be giv­en a chance be­cause if they vote the way they’ve been vot­ing be­fore, they’re still not gonna get rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It’s best they take a chance right now, and that’s what we’re gonna be sell­ing, the idea that this is so dif­fer­ent.”

He em­pha­sised the need for change, say­ing, “This is so out­side the pale of pol­i­tics, as usu­al, there is every like­li­hood, es­pe­cial­ly as it is two or­gan­i­sa­tions that are made up of peo­ple who have been help­ing and solv­ing prob­lems and de­liv­er­ing for decades, that peo­ple should come out in their num­bers and take a chance for them­selves, for bet­ter­ment. What the lo­cal gov­ern­ment is sup­posed to do for this coun­try is nev­er done.”

Re­gard­ing the par­ty’s agen­da, Alexan­der high­light­ed key pri­or­i­ties, stat­ing, “We want a ref­er­en­dum, we want cam­paign fi­nance re­form, we want a re­call, we want fixed elec­tion dates. Those things are crit­i­cal to democ­ra­cy and we are go­ing to be­gin ju­di­cial re­view pro­ceed­ings.

“We are talk­ing with lawyers now. The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion came and jumped in­to the fray, so we have to pause that, but re­gard­less of the out­come, if we have po­lit­i­cal pow­er, we will fix it. If we don’t, we are go­ing to take it as far as the Privy Coun­cil be­cause the Privy Coun­cil seems will­ing to en­gage in up­hold­ing this democ­ra­cy.”

Re-Unit­ed Farm­ers Al­liance po­lit­i­cal leader De­vi­ka Thomas ex­pressed sup­port for the al­liance.

“Over 300 peo­ple who want change have joined us and ac­cept­ed to be part of this al­liance with the PEP. They want a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go, a place where every­one can feel safe again and where democ­ra­cy is not threat­ened on a dai­ly ba­sis,” Thomas said.

The screen­ing process for po­ten­tial can­di­dates will con­tin­ue on Sat­ur­day.