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Feature Address by Winston Dookeran - Arima | | Election 2010 Campaign Speech | | Author: | | Date: 2010-05-15 17:05:02 |
| Well the people of Arima! What a platform you have here tonight. I know that you deserve no less and tonight you have got the best.
Let me tell you that I have come here tonight to help Dr. Keith Rowley. Dr. Keith Rowley has said that as a good sailor, an election time is not the time when you throw overboard your captain. And I read in to that that after election is when he will throw overboard his captain. But I have come to help him, because during the election I will throw overboard his captain and he will not have to do it thereafter.
My friends, Arima has been the home of the First Peoples of Trinidad and Tobago. This is where Trinidad and Tobago all started. Some time ago, in 2006, we had our First People's function here in Arima, at the Legend Hall and I want to pay tribute to the Carib queen Valentina Medina of the Santa Rosa Carib community for being the symbol of the beginning of Trinidad and Tobago.
After that the Europeans came, the Africans, the Indians came, the Chinese came, the Middle Eastern peoples came and now, in 2010, we are one people in Trinidad and Tobago. There are some who would like to keep us divided but what God has put together, no one shall divide asunder.
My friends, I believe you have heard enough on the future. But I want to just simply point out to you how the Peoples Partnership represents the best hope for our country at this juncture.
And I want to say a special word of welcome to Jonathan Stone from Tobago who has been on our platform, and to Lyndira Oudit from the United National Congress for being on this platform here tonight. And in so doing I want to say to our brothers and sisters of the United National Congress, we thank you so much for being the anchor for the People's Partnership in Trinidad and Tobago.
The People's Partnership is an organisation that is anchored in rejecting division and embracing unity. It is anchored in rejecting bad governance and embracing good governance; it is anchored rejecting the politics of exclusiveness and embracing the politics of inclusiveness.
And by that I mean that when Mr. Manning claims that coalition politics will not work and is a danger to our society, he does not understand that coalition politics is being expressed in so many different parts of the world. Even the PNM, in 1956, started the Peoples National Movement on the principle of bringing the peoples together and on bringing a coalition together.
Germany, South Africa, Kenya, Israel, India - they are all countries that have now embraced coalition politics. But that is the modern politics our world today. Whether it is an explicit coalition or an implicit coalition, you've got to bring the people together and you've got to embrace the politics of inclusion.
So when Manning rejects it, he is saying accept his brand of politics, which is the politics of exclusion. So my friends, as I said last night in Tunapuna, he has stopped reading in the 1970s and today the world has moved on and Mr. Manning cannot read what are the needs of the 21st century.
Let me also say to you that at this stage in our political life, we have a lot of work to do. I said it before - let us stop blaming the government, let us stop quarrelling with Mr. Manning. Let us stop complaining about their programmes. Let us just simply fire them on May 24th.
And when we fire them there is a lot to be said and to do, and I obviously will not do that tonight. But I want to bring just one thing that I think is critical so that it can be placed on the public agenda - and that has to do with the issue of the constitution and constitutional reform.
You see my friends, it was Dr Eric William himself in the Independence Day Speech in 1962 who said, "Democracy is but a hollow mockery and a gigantic fraud if it is based on a ruling group's domination."
Mr. Manning's attempt to establish an executive presidency and to con this country into accepting a new constitution is indeed a dagger in the constitutional democracy of Trinidad and Tobago.
And we the people of Trinidad and Tobago, must consider this election, a referendum on those proposals that he has been parading throughout the country and we must reject Manning's constitutional proposals on May 24, in a resounding way.
Because if we don't, we will be subjecting ourselves to a level of repressive politics in our country. He is manipulating the constitution to exercise excessive power.
Today I heard Kamla Persad - Bissesar saying that the days of maximum leadership are over. The days of Mr. Manning have gone.
My friends, the constitution of a nation is the supreme law which determines the framework and the structure of governance of that nation. There is no way that we can allow Mr. Manning to impose a constitution on this country without the sovereign will of the country being expressed.
So I want you to view this election as a rejection of what Mr. Manning is trying to do by curtailing our freedom. We are free people in Trinidad and Tobago. Here in Arima, we are free people. The First People set that up. And we shall not trade our freedom for Mr. Manning's own desire for executive presidency in Trinidad and Tobago.
And that is why I want to make the call for yet another time that in the next ten days, as we work toward that decision, that decision that will alter the course of history of our country. In 1990 I had to defend the democracy of this country. It could have gone either way. In 2010, I am back here to defend the freedom of this country. It can go any way. And I stand up with up with you here today to defend the freedom of Trinidad and Tobago.
Let us all join hands together and let us put now a government of the People's Partnership because our freedom is at stake
There is so much evidence of it in the past. A Prime Minister hounding out a Chief Justice from office, and not even having the decency to apologize, after the Mustill report rejected all the claims. A Prime Minster that was hiding and protecting corruption in UdeCott. And instead of allowing the country to seek justice in the aftermath of the Uff Commission, he decided to call an election. The people will forget the Uff Report and they will forget Calder Hart and he will continue again.
But he has something coming for him. The people are not going to allow him to forget Calder Hart and the Uff Commission Report. And right here we have Vernon De Lima who has been one of the key persons who has triggered this election. So my friends, Manning might believe that he is fooling us but I know for sure that on May 24th, 2010, our people will seek and get the energy to be able to grasp for freedom once again.
So to all those who are listening and to all my brothers and sisters in the Peoples National Movement, I ask you to go inside, find out what your inner voice is, find out what your commitment to this nation is, find out what is your responsibility to the next generation and when you answer that question truthfully you would come to no alternative but to ensure that we can form the next government and start the reconstruction of Trinidad and Tobago.
So I want to thank you so much for being here in Arima.
We shall come again, but before I close I want to say how proud I am that the candidate that has been chosen to contest this seat, is a man of remarkable resilience as an individual; a man of complete integrity as a person; a man of total dedication for his people.
And for the last three or four years that I have known him I have grown to respect almost every word he says, because if there is someone who is now prepared to make government work for the people it is Rodger Samuel, our candidate in Arima. Let us not lose this opportunity to put a man of that caliber into the parliament.
Let us reject those who want to work to keep the PNM government in office. Let us accept those who want to make a new government work for the people, like Rodger Samuel.
So my friends, I leave you here with the expectation that the discontent in this country and the expectation of our society will be reflected in their choice at the next election, not only to elect the People's Partnership government, but also to elect one of the finest men of service in Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. Rodger Samuel.
Thank you very much
I will come here for the victory night, to share with you the joy.
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