Joshua Seemu­n­gal

With the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tions just 35 days away, yet an­oth­er par­ty has con­firmed its par­tic­i­pa­tion.

The Na­tion­wide Or­gan­i­sa­tion of We The Peo­ple (NOW), head­ed by ac­tivist Kirk Wait­he will be con­test­ing the Laven­tille West seat come Au­gust 10.

The par­ty launched its cam­paign at Phase Four, Beetham Gar­dens, yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, it will not be com­pet­ing in any of the oth­er 40 seats de­spite its ini­tial stat­ed in­tent to do so pri­or to the on­set of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“I think re­al­i­ty is to be cre­at­ed and the rea­son I am here and the rea­son peo­ple ask, well, you all ready, you all re­al­ly feel you all could win? And the an­swer is yes,” an adamant Wait­he said.

Many of the com­mu­ni­ties in the con­stituen­cy have been ig­nored for far too long, he claimed. He said his par­ty has what it takes to re­vi­talise these com­mu­ni­ties by tap­ping in­to the cre­ative and en­tre­pre­neur­ial tal­ent present.

“Laven­tille West is a com­mu­ni­ty with im­mense tal­ent. We in­tend to nur­ture the bril­liance of Laven­tille West through sports, arts, en­tre­pre­neur­ship,” he said.

Agri­cul­ture is an­oth­er in­dus­try he hopes to de­vel­op in the con­stituen­cy. In fact, the par­ty’s team set up a hy­dro­pon­ics sys­tem in Phase Four last week. Say­ing he’s been go­ing to the Beetham Gar­dens for many years, Wait­he said the state of the com­mu­ni­ty and oth­ers in Laven­tille West breaks his heart. If con­stituents are hon­est with them­selves, he said, they will ac­knowl­edge that it’s time to try some­thing dif­fer­ent.

“We will be hold­ing up a mir­ror. We're ask­ing the peo­ple of Laven­tille West, in the last five, 10, 15, 20 years, have your lives im­proved? And we will work as­sid­u­ous­ly to an­swer that ques­tion hon­est­ly. And we will work hard over the next few weeks to earn their trust,” he said.

Asked if the par­ty would be will­ing to have dis­cus­sions with oth­er par­ties with the elec­tion on the hori­zon, Wait­he said yes.

“NOW wel­comes any par­ty that wants to work with us to win Laven­tille West ... a unit­ed Laven­tille West. Imag­ine the pow­er of that,” he said.

PNM’s can­di­date for Laven­tille West is the in­cum­bent and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

The UNC was set to re­veal the name of its can­di­date last evening.