Alexander: PEP can form government

THE Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP) is no small party, but a big party fielding enough candidates to win the August 10 general election.

So PEP leader Phillip Edward Alexander told Newsday on Monday. Some 28 PEP candidates filed nomination forms last Friday, the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) said on Saturday.

Alexander said the party originally had 32 candidates, but one was now stuck in New York and so not certain, while others had faced challenges in filing their nominations.

“We are a big party and growing,” he said, saying PEP has chapters in several US cities plus the UK.

Newsday asked why someone should vote PEP.

“We are the only party outside of the PNM and UNC which is able to form a government. We have enough candidates to get a special majority,” he said.

Alexander said PEP has resisted calls to join with smaller parties, saying if those other individuals/entities wish, they can join PEP.

“Marriages of convenience for elections do not augur well,” he said, deploring any idea of trying to forge together entities with contrasting policies. Alexander said parties shouldn’t join just for elections if they cannot later work together in governance, just as people should not focus on the occasion of a wedding but rather the long-term marriage.

Inviting other parties/activists to join PEP, he said it has plans, policies and structure, plus an advisory council and policy documents called Just Press Play and <21policies.com>.

Newsday asked the PEP’s chances against a PNM-UNC duopoly. Alexander said about 50 per cent of voters do not vote, meaning the Government ends up being chosen by roughly 25 per cent of the registered electorate. He expected the PEP could motivate non-voters to vote on election day.

Asked what he hoped for, he replied, “A clean sweep.”

Alexander said the PEP was a party without recycled politicians and was disconnected from the "contract mafia."

Newsday asked about PEP’s election chances in TT’s two-party system.

“We don’t have a two-party system but a two-race system, which is an insult to everybody.”

Alexander abhorred voting along race lines, saying no one should be expected to vote according to their height, weight or sexuality. Racial division has largely replaced critical thinking, he said, at a great cost to this society, which may have to be rebuilt from scratch.

Lamenting that the present system has each election leaving half the country elected and happy and half the country depressed, he said, “That is not how to run a country.”

PEP’s characteristic underlying theme, he said, was: “To elevate the condition of everybody.”

He said PEP’s law enforcement policy was to set specific time lines for each stage of the judicial process, from charging someone to concluding the court case.

PEP’s water policy notes that TT receives 100 times more water than it uses, which he lamented then runs into the sea and then has to be desalinated at an annual cost of $500 million.

Spelling out PEP’s banking policy, he said banks should help generate credit in this society, as in the US where credit had funded the creation of companies like Amazon, which would fail if set up under present conditions in TT.

PEP’s vision was for the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund to stand at $300 trillion, in line with that of Norway, and for a GDP similar to Singapore.

Lamenting that “just 12 feet of pitch” separates Fatima College from Mucurapo Secondary School, Alexander said, “TT is set up to fail. People benefit financially from failure.”

He complained about the $80 million annual cost of prisoner transport and that it costs $240,000 to keep eight people in a jail cell each month.

Newsday asked the mood he has found on the street. He said people are gravitating to the PEP to break the hold of corruption, lock the borders so as to end the drug trade and gun trade, and sideline the big contractors in favour of small local outfits.

Pressed on what doorstep issues the PEP had met, Alexander replied that poor people were suffering, even as it seemed the Government had called the election to run from the budget.

Alexander urged voters not to err by re-electing the PNM.