Though political analysts are fond of describing T&T as largely a "two-party" political arena, successive elections as far back as the legislative council showdown of 1956 have always featured a variety of contestants–both as political organisations and as independent candidates.
The year 1981 tops the standings for the general election featuring the most political parties contesting seats to fill the countries parliamentary seats in the post-independence period.
The United Labour Front (ULF), Democratic Action Congress (DAC) and Tapia House Movement engaged in what they described as an electoral "accommodation" under the umbrella of the National Alliance of T&T (NATT) but the three parties fought as separate units and were among the 12 competing parties that year.
If things go as planned, writer/journalist, Nazma Muller, is due to enter into the political records as the leader of yet another attempt to break the two-party stranglehold described in the elections report of 1961 as being an indisputable reality.
"The results clearly show that politically the system is a two-party system," wrote then Supervisor of Elections Theodore Farrell.
Muller, who recently changed the name of her organisation from Caribbean Rastafari Collective to the Caribbean Collective for Justice (CCJ) –the play on "CCJ" as in Caribbean Court of Justice is deliberate–is not convinced about Farrell's longstanding assertion. But, so far, the party is a single-candidate show.
Can she win and have a voice a parliament?
"Yes," she answered in an interview with T&T Guardian, "I truly believe I can be successful as a candidate in the election because I would be representing Arouca and Maloney, two crime hot spots on the East-West Corridor, with a large population of Afro-Trinidadians, many of whom would benefit from one of my key platform issues: ganja law reform and education reform."
Muller will come up against senior People's National Movement (PNM) candidate, Camille Robinson-Regis and, most likely, Congress of the People (COP)/People's Partnership candidate Wendell Eversley.
"If I were to do a walkabout in Maloney and Five Rivers with a large flag with a ganja leaf on it, believe you me, I would get a lot of support," Muller said. "Nuff fellas smoke herb and believe in Rastafari, and would like to see a different conceptualisation of the Afro-Caribbean youth than being a deviant, or a burden on the state."
While she is hardly a single-issue campaigner–Muller has strong views on equal opportunity and the environment–the prospective CCJ candidate seamlessly segues to "ganja law reform" whatever the issue at hand.
"Hemp and marijuana can balance the budget deficits, the health deficits, the social deficits," she contended.
"I truly believe that marijuana can be the healing of the nations, as Rastafarians say."
"In addition to the increasing number of medicinal and therapeutic benefits that researchers are discovering every day, Rastafarians here believe this plant is sacred," Muller said. "The constitution of the republic guarantees freedom of thought, religious expression, and religious beliefs; and equality in the eyes of the law."
She cites the recent amendment to Jamaica's Dangerous Drugs Act which effectively decriminalises the sale and use of fixed amounts of marijuana. "Jamaica has already set the legal precedent of recognising the Rastafari in its amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act," the former Jamaica Observer reporter said.
"No one can deny the presence and power of Rastafari in T&T; so why then are their beliefs not given the same due respect as the other religions in this country?" she asked.
Muller, whose undergraduate degree is in sociology and who has lived and worked in Jamaica studying "Rastafari and Afro-Caribbean spirituality and cultural forms" said she believed that "marijuana is culturally-entrenched, to use the words of the late Professor Barry Chevannes, the head of Jamaica's Ganja Commission, in T&T, and it has been and continues to be a form of therapy for marginalised youths."
"It is the currency of the underground economy," she asserted. "As a narco-state, Trinidad and Tobago's best approach to drugs would be to legalise, educate and regulate."
Muller is proposing to treat drug addiction, inclusive of alcohol and tobacco use, as a public health issue, "just as you would Dengue and STDs."
"Prohibition," she said, "does not work."
"Save the money from locking up ganja smokers and importing high grade from Jamaica, Colombia and Venezuela; invest it in educating children and youths about all substances that can cause harm," Muller added. "Let us do the research, and look at the data from Uruguay and Portugal, and let us collect our own data on how many people use marijuana already, and how many more could benefit from medicines derived from cannabis."
She said President Anthony Carmona has acknowledged receipt of an online petition calling for "a moratorium on arrests for small quantities of ganja, less than an ounce" and for Chief Justice, Ivor Archie, to press for parliamentary debate on the decriminalising of marijuana immediately after the September 7 election.
In the end, Muller believes the ideals of her fledgling CCJ, whose symbol the marijuana leaf has been rejected by the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), will help ease the pressure on young people and create conditions for wide-ranging reform.
"I speak of my ideas for economic reform, with a focus on education reform to instill a sense of identity and equality, a sense of our formidable and proud history–because we are the sons and daughters of overcomers, innovators, strugglers, creative geniuses," she said.
"I would like to transform our society into one that focuses on our natural resources, and teaching our youths how to appreciate and benefit from the forests, the mountains, the rivers, the leatherbacks, the sun," she said.
"I am engaging the electoral process as a learning one, to understand my people better, to begin a conversation with them about issues that affect us all, and to do it on my terms."