KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) has an­nounced that it will not con­test the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. In­stead, the par­ty will fo­cus on build­ing its ca­pac­i­ty to even­tu­al­ly gov­ern, par­ty leader David Ab­du­lah re­vealed dur­ing a press con­fer­ence in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

Ab­du­lah ex­plained that the de­ci­sion was made af­ter dis­cus­sions at an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing on Jan­u­ary 4, fol­lowed by con­sul­ta­tions with the par­ty’s ac­tivist coun­cil on Mon­day. Mem­bers ac­knowl­edged their cur­rent un­pre­pared­ness for the elec­toral chal­lenge.

“We do not be­lieve that we are in a po­si­tion to do so in 2025, and there­fore we are go­ing to fo­cus on our own build­ing. I men­tioned sev­er­al ar­eas: sus­tain­able and trans­par­ent fund­ing; par­ty build­ing and mem­ber­ship; im­prov­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, in­clud­ing so­cial me­dia,” Ab­du­lah said.

Al­though the MSJ was part of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion gov­ern­ment from 2010 to 2012, Ab­du­lah high­light­ed the par­ty’s in­de­pen­dent elec­toral ef­forts. It par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 2013 and 2016 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions on a lim­it­ed scale and field­ed al­most 30 can­di­dates in 2019 to broad­en its reach. De­spite these ef­forts, progress was dis­rupt­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Ab­du­lah ac­knowl­edged that the par­ty had in­suf­fi­cient time to de­vel­op ful­ly be­fore the next elec­toral cy­cle.

“So we re­al­ly had not had the kind of ex­tend­ed time to do the work of build­ing the par­ty as from 2019. We were us­ing that as the plat­form, and we thought we were in an ex­cel­lent po­si­tion to do that be­tween 2019 and lead­ing up to, if not the 2020 elec­tion, then the 2025 elec­tions, but a num­ber of things be­yond our con­trol im­pact­ed that.”

De­spite its de­ci­sion to sit out the next gen­er­al elec­tion, the MSJ in­tends to re­main ac­tive by en­gag­ing the pub­lic and mak­ing na­tion­al state­ments on crit­i­cal is­sues. Ab­du­lah em­pha­sised the par­ty’s com­mit­ment to ad­vo­cat­ing for cit­i­zens and ad­dress­ing is­sues such as crime, health­care, and eco­nom­ic re­form.

“We are a se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” he as­sert­ed, adding that the MSJ plans to present a gen­uine al­ter­na­tive to the cit­i­zen­ry—one fo­cused on poli­cies and phi­los­o­phy rather than per­son­al­i­ties, race, re­li­gion, or ge­og­ra­phy.

To bol­ster its ad­vo­ca­cy, the MSJ’s ac­tivist coun­cil, which met on De­cem­ber 15, ap­proved the ap­point­ment of three new spokesper­sons: at­tor­ney Runako Gregg for pub­lic law, Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion first vice pres­i­dent Avion Dray­ton-Bai­ley for health, and for­mer T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Da­vanand Sinanan for ed­u­ca­tion. Ab­du­lah not­ed that the move aims to di­ver­si­fy the par­ty’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy and en­sure broad­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion of voic­es with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

He al­so un­der­scored the im­por­tance of pass­ing cam­paign fi­nance leg­is­la­tion be­fore the next gen­er­al elec­tion, de­scrib­ing it as a crit­i­cal step for po­lit­i­cal trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

When ques­tioned about in­ter­nal ten­sions with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) re­gard­ing the pro­posed ap­point­ment of Stu­art Young as prime min­is­ter, Ab­du­lah de­clined to com­ment. “What hap­pens in­side the PNM is the PNM’s busi­ness.”

Asked whether the MSJ would con­sid­er po­lit­i­cal part­ner­ships or al­liances, Ab­du­lah re­it­er­at­ed the par­ty’s pri­or­i­ty of strength­en­ing it­self to bring about trans­for­ma­tive change.