MND’s Mandavi Tiwary wants to make a positive change for TT

This can be done by becoming involved in national issues.

Ironically, when she was growing up, she said she had no interest in politics but she said she could no longer accept, the absolute culture of mediocrity and indifference for country from people who she believed could have gotten up and done something meaningful, was another factor behind her getting into politics.

“They just don’t care,” said Tiwary, “people outside want to see change but they just don’t want to get it done. We’ve come to the year 2006 and I don’t think that it’s right for people to just sit back, especially responsible, professional, hard-working women with families who say that they don’t want to get into the nasty game of politics.”

Patriotism is another factor behind Tiwary’s decision to seek political office. “I have nowhere to live,” she emphasised, “apart from Trinidad and Tobago. I’m not going to go to Miami, Canada or England because I’m a second class citizen wherever else I go. I’m a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and I’m entitled to live here comfortably, peacefully and in the best possible way I can. I think I’ve earned it.”

Tiwary also wanted to leave a better TT for her two small children than how she thinks it currently is.

“I want to ensure, that my children and everybody else who have children can comfortably live here. That’s all I want to see and if the PNM, UNC or whoever, could do that, then I wouldn’t have to do anything.”

Tiwary receives support from her family and her in-laws for her budding political career. However, she does have to contend with the negative opinions of other persons in society regarding her decision to get active into politics.

“Most people support me in anything I decide to do but I’m a very independent person and I make the decision about what I want to do. I mean not everybody would agree with you, they’ll think you’ve gone too far and tell you that you don’t even have time for yourself but if I didn’t do it, who else will?”

A lawyer by profession, she said she was the only independent person in the MND who’s not employed with a corporation or a similar type of business grouping.

“So, if we form a group, I can act independently,” she remarked, “for I don’t have to go to my boss and ask for time off, whereas everybody else is colonialised. They all work for other people, so, in that sense, it’s difficult for them and I recognise that.

“And when I say independent, I mean that they are victimised if they decide to choose an alternative to either the UNC or the PNM. It’s that if you have a different view and if I work for an institution and it’s governed by those who carry a weight in one party or the other, they are going to victimise me.”

(Tiwary practises in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court and she does some Legal Aid cases and some gun matters but she mainly does juvenile cases at the Family Court.)

She said some of the MND’s young members have been victimised as a result of their political persuasion.

“Despite all of that,” remarked Tiwariy, “they have stood up for what they think is right and we in the MND insist that youths and women have to make decisions on an equal basis on party affairs with everybody else. And it’s really on that basis that I decided to get involved in politics but I’m not just getting involved for the sake of getting involved.

“I would like to get back the spirit of Trinidad,” stressed Tiwary, “the freedom of movement, the ability to be law abiding and to have the State provide proper security for its citizens.”

Unfortunately, she noted, there were not enough very responsible individuals in the nation and society who wanted to do serious political work.

“My seniors in the legal profession don’t want to do it because they are selfish and I say that without fear or favour,” said Tiwary.

She continued, “They are hard working but they are hard working for themselves alone and they don’t really want to give to the community when they can afford to do more than I can.”

On behalf of all of TT’s women, she congratulated Kamla Persad- Bissessar for being appointed the new UNC Opposition Leader.

“The MND believes that it’s a step in the right direction, especially for women in politics,” she said.

“I really think that the UNC needs to be united and it’s absolute chaos with them at the moment with the factions fighting each other,” said Tiwary.

She continued, “Whoever’s at the head of the UNC has to unite the party otherwise it means disaster for the party. I would also say that more chaos is following more chaos with the UNC’s current morass.

“But the fact is that the opposition party has to be united to fight the issues of the day,” Tiwary stated, and once there’s no effective opposition party, then the government can’t be kept in check and the State can abuse its authority. Governmental abuse is the order of the day and it’s very happy with the current political situation because they can do whatever they like without any checks and balances from the opposition. I hope that good sense would prevail and that somebody could unite the UNC.”

She continued, “But then maybe the country needs a political alternative and unless the internal wranglings are not worked out, then there’s no opposition.”

Tiwary agreed that organised crime has penetrated TT society along with different levels of criminals.

“But what is most disturbing are the young criminals between the ages of 13 to 25 and these are the ones who comprise the majority of the prison population,” stated Tiwary.

She said broken, dysfunctional families, rampant illiteracy, indisciplined, peer group behaviour and the allure of American style gangster rap from some of the cable television programmes were the main reasons behind the nation’s crime problems.

“It’s a basic social problem that is causing a lot of the criminal activity in the country and it’s funded by big business, I firmly believe that,” she stressed, “and because of this, we are not able to find out who is really in charge. These youths are just the pawns in the bigger and larger money making ventures of drugs and guns. Additionally, we have the difficulty of police and army personnel being involved in crime. We don’t have any DNA evidence, we don’t have any people who are trained properly to investigate homicides, drug dealing, gun-running and we don’t have proper forensics, so all of those things contribute. Unless you get experts to investigate these things, how are you going to get the evidence? And if you don’t have the evidence, how are you going to prosecute? And when you come to prosecute, you have prosecutors who are police officers who are not trained in the art of advocacy.”

She said that despite all of the billions of petro-dollars in the land, the country seems to be getting poorer.

“Our infrastructure is devastated and we have this problem with criminal activity.”

She said the MND, in its manifesto, is calling for the introduction of DNA legislation, mandatory life sentences for drug traffickers and gun-runners and the cleaning up of the Police Service.

“I don’t know whether or not we have any particular stance on the death penalty as it is,” said Tiwary. “We say we’re going to retain the Privy Council as a final Court of Appeal because of interference. As regards the death penalty, I think that the MND will go with whatever the majority feels however, we ought to be in line with international standards which is opposed to the death penalty. But for people, like us in the Caribbean, who have suffered the scourge of crime for the past ten years, the majority of people in the country would like to see the death penalty enforced.”

She said the MND believes in compensating the victims of crime through a specially established compensation unit.

Tiwary said that the MND will be enforcing the law regarding environmental crimes.

“What we need to do is update the environmental legislation to deal with people who are violators of that and unless you have enforcement of the laws, then you’d get nowhere. You can’t have the law and nobody enforcing it. And you also need specific courts to deal with environmental offences.”

As for the upcoming elections, she said the MND have been conducting cottage meetings and receiving a good feedback from individuals.

“The voters want a united, single force for positive change in the country,” she ended.

Tiwary is determined to be a part of that change.