PEP to contest three general election seats

PHILLIP EDWARD ALEXANDER, political leader of the Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP), is urging all smaller political parties to join him and the UNC to become part of the Coalition of Interest.

At the launch of the PEP 2025 general election campaign and presentation of candidates at Bamboo #1 on March 22, he said to those “politicians who say they want a better country” that the coalition under UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar was the only way forward.

“The only way to save Trinidad and Tobago is for all, all of us, to unite. And you can't complain boss. When I in my party, when I in my office, I could do I want. I is the boss. But I sit down with them, I’m not the boss.

“And I understand that to be a good leader, you have to be a good follower. To be a good leader, you have to understand that there will be a time when you have to add your strength to other people's strength in pursuit of the common interest, for the betterment of the country, to rescue all of the people, to save the nation. That is the purpose.”

PEP will be contesting three seats in the April 28 general election including Alexander for Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West, Janice Learmond-Criqui for Diego Martin West and Brendon Butts for Diego Martin North East.

He said he paid attention to the changes in Trinidad and Tobago over the last ten years under the PNM and life under Persad-Bissessar was better and calmer. She was the prime minister from 2010-2015.

He said after independence Trinidad and Tobago was the best place to live as it claimed many superlatives. It had “the highest standard of education in the western world,” has the largest brain coral in the world, was number one in the world in cocoa, pitch and sugar, had the best refinery in the world, and had laws that were used as models for other countries. He said it was the place where the cure for rabies was found and where the television set prototype was invented.

“That is who we are, and we have to remember who we are as a people, where we come from, because that's the only way to chart how much to believe in what we could be and where we could go, and the unity that the Coalition of Interest represents.”

Alexander also referenced the accusations of bullying by PM Stuart Young when he was in secondary school saying he would not let Young’s action be pushed aside. He said, on his social media pages, he asked all who had been bullied by Young to reach out to him so he could tell their stories.

“Stuart Young, until you apologise to Imran Khan for the five years of torture, you should not be allowed to run for elected office in this country. And to all the victims of abuse and bullying and systemic discrimination who have walked with me for decades, know that I will stand with you.”