(Article taken from the Newsday dated Thursday, April 20 2006)

Proportional representation for the Senate, a budgetary allocation of each member of Parliament, two term limit for serving as prime minister, a system of recall for non-performing members of Parliament, the establishment of juvenile courts, and new uniforms “more suitable to the climate” for the police.

These were some of the manifesto pledges of the Movement for National Development (MND), which were unveiled by political leader Garvin Nicholas. Nicholas presented and elaborated on the document, which focuses on every area of national development, at a news conference at Crowne Plaza, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

Among the things rejected by the MND in the manifesto were the idea of an executive president and Caribbean Court of Justice as the final court of appeal. Nicholas stated that it was important to preserve an independent body (the Privy Council) as the final court of appeal especially since there was concern about political interference in the judiciary.

Among the ideas being promoted by the “fresh, dynamic and relevant” party, is the reservation of permanent seats in the Senate for all heads of all major religious organisations, representatives from labour, business, academia, national youth organisation and NGOs.

“This way no government without a clear majority of overall support will be able to rule as if they had such a majority and the level of debate in the Upper House is expected to be of a higher, less partisan quality,” Nicholas said.

He said the manifesto would be distributed and “articulated widely” to a broad cross section of civic organisations, who would be required to make an input. He said gone were the days when a manifesto would appear like “a thief in the night after some leader has found the election date in his back pocket.”

Nicholas said people were cynical of politics and distrustful of promises because of the unprecedented number of MPs before the courts.

Nicholas who said he wanted to rid the country of racial politics, stated that the purpose of the MND was to provide another choice to the electorate.

He said the failed UNC had been brought down by greed, infighting and possibly corruption. He said the PNM was inept, corrupt and the only thing keeping it together was the desire to hold on to power.

On the issue of crime, Nicholas stated that MND would amend the recently passed Police Reform Bill so that the police commissioner and deputy police commissioners are chosen on the basis of a special majority vote by the Parliament.