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Address by Mr. Winston Dookeran - Laventille | | Election 2010 Campaign Speech | | Author: | | Date: 2010-05-11 09:05:42 |
| My people here in Laventille in Port of Spain, you will remember in the campaign of 2007 when I came onto the hills of Laventille I said Trinidad and Tobago will only rise when Laventille rises. And today I am so happy to witness the first step in that rise by the foundation of the Makandal Daaga foundation for Laventille by my good friend Mr. Jack Warner.
So we have started the process of rising. It's not going to be by rhetoric, it is going to be by hard work, dedication, loyalty, sincerity and trust.
Then I told you that my mission was to get the politics right and a number of us formed the Congress of the People. We have been on that mission and we continue to be on that mission but then I met the National Joint Action Committee here in Port of Spain and met all the members of that committee, had many dialogues with them, and I realized that getting the politics right was not enough; getting the community right was necessary as well, and so we formed a close alliance between the Congress of The People and the National Joint Action Committee. I am proud to sit on this platform here today in the presence of Makandal Daaga and our colleagues from NJAC.
But as I continue this journey onwards I realize that getting the politics right was good, getting the community right was good, but what is most important is let us get our country right and that is why I am on the platform of the People's Partnership in 2010.
Getting the country right is where we are going. I have had enough of those who blame the government; I've had enough of those who complain about the government, I've had enough about those who quarrel about the government. I say to you here today let us not blame the government, let us not quarrel with the government, let us simply fire the government with this election.
And when we fire them what shall we do? That is why I am here in the few moments before you to just outline to you very briefly the four pillars upon which we shall rebuild our society and our country. Because our job is to build a new Trinidad and Tobago where every race, every ethnicity, every creed, every religion shall feel that they are equal in this society. Whether you are of African heritage, or Indian heritage, or Chinese heritage, or Middle Eastern heritage or European heritage, you must be equal in Trinidad and Tobago from now on.
So we must build a new society and we must build a new society by putting down some new pillars - pillars that will be so strong that they can withstand any kind of currents of the future.
The first pillar I will mention to you here today, without going in any great detail - because we do so elsewhere - in Trinidad and Tobago today, we must stop the growth of the criminal industry in our country. Its complex, but it has to be done. It is not outside our reach to do so. Other civilizations send people up to the moon, why can't we stop the growth of the criminal industry in little Trinidad and Tobago? And we have the same brain; we have the same loyalty for our country as they have for the world.
I do not share the argument that it is complicated and complex and we have to wait year after year, for getting false hopes. But we shall have the resolve in this People's Partnership parliament to stop the growth of the criminal industry.
The second aspect on the second pillar of our movement will be to rebuild the international image of Trinidad and Tobago. Today our image throughout the world is one that we can only hold our heads down on. In all the foreign capitals of the world, in all the foreign institutions of the world, people are looking at us here in Trinidad and Tobago to see whether or not we will continue having such a bad image, or would we start the process forward.
Two days ago I announced a number of foreign policy initiatives to do that. But tonight I just want to announce one that is very important to our people, in our thirst to take a rightful place in the international arena, as a sovereign nation, we shall indeed improve our relations with other nations, other than within the Caribbean or in the hemisphere and we shall in response to the desires of our Muslim friends, establish a system for the procurement of visas which is at minimum inconvenience and expenses and we shall hold diplomatic discussions with the government of Saudi Arabia to put that into effect as soon as we get into office.
You see, we don't want ambassadors who go to cocktail parties alone, we need ambassadors who will work and earn their living for the people of Trinidad and Tobago and we shall put them to work in the interest of the people of our nation.
A point that has been made here tonight, and I have said it too, we will have to fix our economy so that the first claim on the resources of the people will be the people themselves. So we will not fall for the symbols of development, but we will embrace the substance of development, and the symbols of development are up in the sky; the substance of development is you who are here and the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
The fourth pillar, as we begin to rebuild our country, is to embark on a major program of political reform. For the reason that we are in this state of affairs and the reason why Mr. Manning can get away with what he has got away is because the system of politics has collapsed and he is exploiting that. So my friends, we must introduce a new system of political reform.
You see, they are using the instruments of fear. They are telling the people, and I see it every day when I walk through Tunapuna, they are creating fear in the peoples' mind. They are saying we shall get rid of GATE, there is no such thing in our plans, they are saying we shall get rid of CEPEP, there is no such thing in our plans, they are saying that we shall get rid of UTT, there is no such thing in our plans - but what we have in our plan, we shall get rid of Mr. Manning and his government and that I can assure you of.
Our political reform will be built on two basic premises - people's participation and representative government.
For peoples' participation we have included the proposal for the establishment of a civil society board, and such board shall convert itself into stakeholder advisory councils and will be given a statutory right for consultation with the government. You see, citizens' right is not a prerogative of the government, citizens right is your prerogative as a sovereign people. And we shall put into place civil society board to enshrine within the law that that should take place, so we don't have what has been happening - that everybody has been protesting all over the country, but there is no respect for citizens' rights. So what I am telling you is not only rhetoric, is not only words, it is proposals that will be able to convert this rhetoric into reality in the new Trinidad and Tobago.
And on the question of representative government, we have had what Mr. Manning calls, the constitution debate. We know that our people are not represented anymore. Our local government system is nonfunctional, our parliamentary system is exclusive so we shall go back to Sir Hugh Wooding who in 1976, offered to this country a new system of representation, which was a mixture between 'first past the post' and proportional representation, the objective of which is that nobody must be disenfranchised after election, everybody must be represented in the parliament of the country. And we shall put that once more on the table.
So Mr. Manning's constitution reform which is aimed at executive presidency is going to do just the opposite. He's going to concentrate power on top, and we are going to bring power at bottom. That's the philosophical difference between what is and what could be.
So my friends, tonight I just wanted to outline the pillars upon which we shall move ahead and I want to ask you, in as loud as you can say it, are you prepared to protect that future that we are talking about? Are you prepared to fire Mr. Manning and his government? Are you prepared to elect Mr. Makandal Daaga as your next representative in Laventille West? Are you prepared to elect Mr. Kwasi Mutema as your representative in Laventille East Morvant, Giselle Russell in Port of Spain South and Annabelle Davis in Port of Spain North St Anns West?
A powerful team ahead of you, new representatives where a government shall work for the people, not will we allow the people to keep a government there. Those days are over, you don't have to work to keep a government there, you have to put a government there to work for you. So my friends, when Mr. Manning called a snap election, I said in a public statement, 'Well, if he calls a snap election, we shall have a snap response'. And a snap response is what we have had which is now so powerful, that is now a formidable platform in this country. I feel sure that the snap election and the snap response will lead us now to a snap victory and the polls coming May the 24th.
Thank you very much.
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