The election race just got stiffer.

Political Leader of the Patriotic Front, Mickela Panday, announced on Thursday that the party will offer candidates to contest seats for all 41 constituencies in the general election due to be held later this year.

While the young Panday’s entry to the election race is new, it comes with the seasoned experience of the ‘Silver Fox’. Her father, Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday will lead the party’s political campaign.

In a political playground where the main players are the ruling People’s National Movement and the United National Congress, Panday denounced “propaganda” which might suggest her party’s entry into the race would only serve to split votes. 

“We have done a statistical study of the voting pattern in this country using the EBC and CSO statistics, and the voting pattern has shown, that of the two major parties, put together, less that 50 percent of the entire electorate votes for them. It follows therefore that about 50 percent of the electorate do not vote at all,” she said.

She questioned whether the current political climate was one which fulfilled what ought to be the ultimate intent of office holders and seekers- to be a service tool for those they are elected to govern.

“If your only option is to choose between two parties A and B, and you choose to vote for Party A instead of Party B because you say they are less corrupt, your choice when you go to the polls, is to vote for corruption because less corrupt is corrupt. So if you are voting for a party because they are less corrupt then you are voting for corruption. But that was when you had no choice. You have one now,” she vowed.

And contrary to what has been often been accepted as “Trinbagonian politics” the Patriotic Front leader vowed to captain a different kind of ship. 

“…We intend to introduce a new kind of politics into Trinidad and Tobago, namely a politics in which we do not slander, tell lies, shame, mudsling or malign any political party or their members. We have no need for that,” she said.