?Reign­ing Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Kurt Allen has be­gun his po­lit­i­cal cam­paign and is look­ing to screen can­di­dates to make up his slate to speak un­der the ban­ner of his new­ly-formed the Bright Peo­ple Par­ty.

He said the par­ty was es­tab­lished to raise a greater aware­ness of crit­i­cal is­sues that are in­suf­fi­cient­ly high­light­ed in the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. Allen said his can­di­dates would be se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent var­i­ous in­ter­ests and com­mu­ni­ties–cell­phones in pris­ons, pover­ty of the mind, ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, the so­cial­ly dis­placed, wa­ter woes and the fam­i­ly.

Al­though he had tak­en a po­lit­i­cal spin on what's hap­pen­ing in the coun­try, Allen said he had not for­got­ten his role as ca­lyp­so monarch. He said the Bright Peo­ple Par­ty would al­so high­light the role of so­cial and po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary in the ca­lyp­so genre. While some might se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er his of­fer­ings for May 24, Allen said his par­ty would not face the of­fi­cial elec­tion race. In­stead, on May 23, his can­di­dates would com­plete their stint of "run­ning for elec­tions" with a 5K marathon.