Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), one of the con­stituent el­e­ments of the gov­ern­ing Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, is set to hold its first in­ter­nal elec­tions as the par­ty moves to for­malise its con­sti­tu­tion and lead­er­ship team.This was an­nounced by gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor David Ab­du­lah, who is a mem­ber of the MSJ's co-or­di­nat­ing com­mit­tee, dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the Roy­al Ho­tel, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day.Ab­du­lah said for the past year, the MSJ team, which in­cludes Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al, An­cil Ro­get, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers' Union pres­i­dent Joseph Re­my and Sheep and Goat As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Shariz Khan, has been work­ing to struc­ture the par­ty as the voice of labour.

The found­ing con­fer­ence will be held on May 14 at a venue to be an­nounced.Ab­du­lah said at the found­ing con­fer­ence, the par­ty would hold for­mal elec­tions for its lead­er­ship team, "es­tab­lish our con­sti­tu­tion and our pol­i­cy po­si­tions very clear­ly and give from the mem­ber­ship lev­el clear di­rec­tion to the lead­er­ship as we pur­sue the is­sues of the or­di­nary peo­ple, youth, women and com­mu­ni­ties through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go."It is a tru­ly, ex­cit­ing tremen­dous event that will suc­ceed in light­ing a fire in the minds and hearts in work­ing peo­ple so they know po­lit­i­cal­ly they have a par­ty that rep­re­sents their in­ter­ests," Ab­du­lah said.

He as­sured that the par­ty elec­tions had noth­ing to do with the MSJ's po­si­tion with the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment in which they re­mained a com­mit­ted part­ner.No­tably ab­sent from the con­fer­ence was MSJ pres­i­dent, Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod, who is at­tend­ing a trade union con­fer­ence in Grena­da.Ab­du­lah said the elec­tions were not about a "con­test," but de­vel­op­ing a team of lead­ers who would be "work­ing to­geth­er and dis­cussing" is­sues.He said the par­ty was a "dif­fer­ent kind of po­lit­i­cal par­ty," and they were work­ing to build some­thing that was "sol­id and high­ly sus­tain­able."

Ab­du­lah said the mem­ber­ship of the MSJ in­cludes "not on­ly work­ers who are unionised, but non-unionised work­ers, farm­ers and fish­er­folk, the youth, the el­der­ly, re­tired work­ers, small busi­ness peo­ple, the self-em­ployed, those who iden­ti­fy with what we stand for so­cial jus­tice eq­ui­ty, sus­tain­able liveli­hoods for all, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, peace and se­cu­ri­ty for every sin­gle cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go."The MSJ, he said, would be hold­ing re­gion­al as­sem­blies in the lead-up to the found­ing con­fer­ence on May 14.