Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is calling on citizens to face challenges head-on and together.

In her message for Republic Day, she also vowed to protect and preserve constitutional rights, freedoms, and privileges.

Read the Opposition Leader’s Republic Day message:

As Trinidad and Tobago celebrate the 48th anniversary of Republic Day, I extend my very best wishes to all citizens.

The significance of our fledgling nation’s adoption of a Republican Constitution in 1976 must never be taken for granted. In a constitutional republic, government representatives are elected. They then make laws and administer the country’s business for a specified period. However, a charter of rights or constitution restricts the elected representatives’ actions and law-making abilities.

This was a very progressive move in our country’s self-determination, as Constitutional Republicanism gave us the right to create our own governance rules, elect our own Head of State, and chart our destiny as a sovereign nation while protecting the rights and freedoms of the elected minority from abuse by the elected majority.

In deference to and commitment to the truest tenets of Constitutional republicanism, I have always philosophized about improving Government transparency, restricting Government overreach, and protecting the rights, privileges, and freedoms of our citizens.

To this end, the Government I led from 2010 to 2015 focused on implementing progressive, people-centred policies and programs, which manifested a clear plan for our country’s development in all areas.

These included ensuring the safety and security of our citizens, providing for a safer country, providing quality education for our children, improving the standard of healthcare provided to citizens, and focusing on expanding the economy and creating sustainable jobs.

As our nation heads into another General Election in the coming months, I vow to all citizens that I will continue to protect and preserve their constitutional rights, freedoms, and privileges.

During the past nine years of the current administration, there has been an unending attack on independent institutions. Numerous attempts to subvert the Constitution and unprecedented government intrusion into the lives of average citizens have also occurred.

From overbearing and overreaching financial legislation, health mandates, excessive spying and surveillance to interferences in the protective services, taxation authorities, service commissions, and EBC, this Government has taken the nation down a path of dictatorship.

Trinidad and Tobago is now a nation whose hallmarks are the erosion of our democratic institutions and tenets, an economic down spiral, an unprecedented, deadly crime and violence wave, and a citizenry forced to exist in fear and terror at all levels.

Republic Day serves as a keen reminder that we still have remarkable powers to determine our nation’s future as a people. I urge citizens to use their voting power to ensure we protect our hard-won freedoms and demand an end to Government abuse, intrusion, and overreach.

We must face our challenges head-on, together, with boundless faith, to forge our destiny.

May God always bless our beloved nation.