Sto­ry by JANELLE BERNARD

One of the mem­bers of the Bet­ter Unit­ed po­lit­i­cal coali­tion says while the group will not of­fer can­di­dates for all 41 elec­toral seats in the up­com­ing 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, it still hopes to make an im­pact in the elec­tion and the Par­lia­ment.

This, from Louis Lee Sing, the leader of the Port of Spain Peo­ple’s Move­ment (PPM).

The Bet­ter Unit­ed coali­tion com­pris­es:

• Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), led by Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan

• Trinidad & To­ba­go De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Front (TTDF), led by An­tho­ny William

• De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (DPTT), led by Steve Al­varez

• Port of Spain Peo­ple’s Move­ment (PPM), led by Louis Lee Sing

Ac­cord­ing to Lee Sing, Bet­ter Unit­ed can make a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact in this elec­tion.

“The ex­pec­tant hope is that we will put in­to the field a min­i­mum of 15 can­di­dates,” he ex­plained, “and that ought to put us in a po­si­tion where we can change the pol­i­tics with­in the Par­lia­ment and the coun­try. There­by, we can break the par­a­digm that has ex­ist­ed for many years with on­ly two dom­i­nant par­ties."

Lee Sing says both the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) have failed to prop­er­ly gov­ern the coun­try. He ar­gues that there is a need for new and in­de­pen­dent voic­es.

Lee Sing says the mo­tives of the pre­vi­ous Peo­ples Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment al­so were not in the in­ter­est of the coun­try.

“Those par­ties came to­geth­er then, not with no­ble or ho­n­ourable in­ten­tions, but to get rid of the in­cum­bent gov­ern­ment,” he points out. “Our mis­sion is dif­fer­ent. We want to get in­to Par­lia­ment, so who­ev­er is there can force the agen­da of good gov­er­nance; an agen­da of dis­ci­pline and se­ri­ous­ness, to be­come the hall­marks of our Par­lia­ment,” he added.

Vot­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go go to the polls in one month’s time—on Mon­day 10 Au­gust 2020.