AS the Alliance For Change (AFC) gears up for the November 12 Local Government Elections (LGEs), its members are challenging all candidates in the running to public debates to prove their competency.

On Wednesday at its weekly press conference at the party’s Centre For Change, party members provided an update on the journey along the campaign trail.

Present at the press briefing were Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan; Vice Chairman Cathy Hughes; Region Four Chairman, Michael Leonard; Minister of Business (Treasurer) Dominic Gaskin and Campaign Director, David Patterson.

The party launched its LGE campaign on October 6, 2018, with a mega candidates’ expo at the Centre for Change where over 300 candidates from Regions Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven and 10 attended.

Since then, they have also met with candidates in Regions Eight and Nine while several meetings have been held in various municipalities and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) with the party’s contestants.

Leonard stated that these activities will continue until Elections Day while senior party members will be meeting with candidates in every region during the course of this week and the next.

He added that social media platforms are also being widely used to communicate with voters and this had been successful thus far.

“The campaign committee is pleased with how the campaign has been executed thus far and will continue to work with all the candidates to ensure their success at the polls,” Leonard said.

Briefing the media on the works being done in his region, candidate from Region Five, Trevon Chichester, said the AFC is contesting six of the NDCs.

He said the party will be working to rectify the lack of confidence in NDCs in the region. “The Alliance For Change is very strong in this area and we know that we will not be defeated and we are going there with that confidence because the people are expecting great things from us,” he said and contended that all members are “fit and proppa” and ready to serve.

EXCELLENT PEOPLE
“All of our candidates are well respected, they are well educated and they are well connected with the people. They know what the needs of the communities are and they are able to fulfil on those promises,” Chichester told reporters.

The major issues he will tackle include drainage, streetlights, water challenges and roads.
“We want to ensure that throughout the NCDs, all areas are serviced, that the roadways are safe for our children, that the dirt is off [and] that there’s proper drainage for the water to be off of the road,” he said.

Meanwhile, representing Lamaha Yarrowkabra, locally known as Kuru-Kururu, is Amaniah Cort for Constituency Two.
Cort is a teacher who lives and was born in the area and wants to see local democracy begin there.

“There has never been an NDC in Kuru-Kururu, so the area has been neglected for a while and there haven’t been a lot of development in the area, so we’re hoping that with this LGE 2018 [to] set up Local Government within the area; get our NDC work in order and begin to enact change within the community,” she said.

Cort said she is receiving a lot of support from persons in the area who are eager to see real change.

One of the areas she will address is youth advocacy for the development of skill and job-readiness training for youths.

Leonard utilised the forum to challenge all candidates for public debates as this, he said, would prove to be beneficial for the voting process for citizens.

“We believe that it is in the best interest for the population for the candidates to present themselves as we are doing here for interrogation, but also to present their ideas and their proposals,” he said.

He added: “For councillors and persons who have operated in the Local Government System before [would be able to] answer questions on their record. So, we are re-issuing our challenge to all the political parties and independent candidates to public debate and discussions on our plans and proposal for Local Government Elections.”