Renu­ka Singh

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple has en­gaged the as­sis­tance of Cana­di­an Ray Lar­son to help bol­ster the par­ty's grass­root sup­port in a bid to build the par­ty base. Lar­son, is a po­lit­i­cal con­sul­tant who is al­so par­ty sec­re­tary of the Lib­er­al Par­ty of Cana­da, spoke at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the par­ty's Flag­ship House, St Clair, said grass­root ena­gage­ment helps po­lit­i­cal par­ties to vic­to­ry at the polls."I am hop­ing to help the COP re-en­gage with cit­i­zens across Trinidad and To­ba­go," Lar­son said.

Lar­son said the ba­sis of the en­gage­ment is by talk­ing di­rect­ly to vot­ers "on the ground, at their homes, in the street.""When the COP forms the Gov­ern­ment again, it is en­sure that they are re­spond­ing to the needs of the peo­ple," he said.Even with so­cial tech­nol­o­gy and eas­i­er method­olo­gies to en­gage vot­ers, Lar­son be­lieves that on­ly through the ef­fort of walk­ing and talk­ing with vot­ers will the COP be vic­to­ri­ous. But even af­ter hav­ing said that, Lar­son de­nied this was an ini­tia­tive geared to­ward help­ing COP in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

"It is not about the next elec­tion and it should not be about win­ning the next elec­tion. Re­al­ly it is about ul­ti­mate­ly build­ing for the long term," he said.Par­ty leader Prakash Ra­mad­har al­so spoke with the me­dia and said the COP will suc­ceed "against the odds" be­cause it has delvered on its man­i­festo promis­es. Com­ing out of this ini­tia­tive the par­ty will launch its Grand Con­sen­sus 2, which will en­com­pass the knowl­edge gained on the ground and form the ba­sis for its 2015 man­i­festo.

Ra­mad­har said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship was able to de­liv­er on al­most all its man­i­festo promis­es."I am pleased to an­nounce that of the 280 odd promis­es, on­ly 30 odd are out­stand­ing. I am ex­treme­ly glad we have lived up to that," he said.