KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) po­lit­i­cal leader David Ab­du­lah an­nounced to­day that the par­ty will not con­test the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions. The MSJ will in­stead fo­cus on build­ing its ca­pac­i­ty to gov­ern ef­fec­tive­ly in the fu­ture.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence, Ab­du­lah said the par­ty de­cid­ed last night that it is not ready for the elec­toral chal­lenge. De­spite this, the MSJ will con­tin­ue ad­vo­cat­ing for cit­i­zens by en­gag­ing with the pub­lic and rais­ing aware­ness about their rights. The par­ty will al­so keep is­su­ing state­ments on na­tion­al is­sues.

Ab­du­lah high­light­ed the MSJ’s pre­vi­ous elec­tion ef­forts, not­ing that the par­ty par­tic­i­pat­ed on a lim­it­ed scale in the 2013 and 2016 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. The MSJ ex­pand­ed its pres­ence in 2019 to en­gage more cit­i­zens, but the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hin­dered its progress. He ac­knowl­edged that the par­ty has not had enough time to de­vel­op to the de­sired lev­el.

To strength­en its voice, the MSJ’s ac­tivist coun­cil met on De­cem­ber 15 and ap­point­ed three spokesper­sons to ad­dress key sec­tors:

* At­tor­ney-at-law Runako Gregg on pub­lic law

* Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion first vice-pres­i­dent Avion Dray­ton-Bai­ley on health

* For­mer TTUTA pres­i­dent De­vanand Sinanan on ed­u­ca­tion

Ab­du­lah said he will no longer serve as the sole voice for the par­ty, em­pha­sis­ing a shift to­ward del­e­ga­tion and spe­cialised com­mu­ni­ca­tion.