Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

One day af­ter Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah an­nounced he was quit­ting the UNC-led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, sev­er­al UNC ac­tivists fol­lowed suit, ten­der­ing their res­ig­na­tions yes­ter­day.

For­mer UNC mem­ber and coun­cil­lor for Co­coyea/Tarou­ba Dar­ren McLeod and Port-of-Spain south UNC ac­tivist Juli­et Davy turned up at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, yes­ter­day and re­turned par­ty cards from nine peo­ple, who they said were no longer in­ter­est­ed in be­ing part of the UNC. McLeod said more than 261 peo­ple had ex­pressed an in­ter­est in leav­ing the UNC. Asked why none of the ac­tivists had showed up, McLeod said many were afraid of be­ing vic­timised.

He said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship had failed in bring­ing a new type of pol­i­tics and was en­gag­ing in dis­crim­i­na­tion, nepo­tism and seg­re­ga­tion. Davy, who con­test­ed the Port-of-Spain South and Laven­tille West seats for the UNC in 2001 and 2010, said she was dis­heart­ened be­cause UNC mem­bers had no voice. "The par­ty does not have a fo­rum in which mem­bers can voice their opin­ions freely. They have sev­er­al events, but mem­bers are not al­lowed to speak. "On a few oc­ca­sions when a mem­ber spoke out about the par­ty, that mem­ber was put to sit down and was told that she dis­re­spect­ed the PM," Davy said. She added that dis­grun­tled UNC mem­bers had de­cid­ed to fol­low MSJ's lead and form a pres­sure group called Coun­try First which would serve as a watch­dog for the PP. Asked whether she planned to join the MSJ, Davy said: "We would have to de­cide where we would go, based on the re­cep­tion we get from the pop­u­la­tion." She said her group would go to each com­mu­ni­ty and find out what prob­lems peo­ple were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.