For­mer tem­po­rary op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Mar­sha Walk­er will con­test the Diego Mar­tin West seat for the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA).

In a joint me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day with HOPE and CRN, the NTA of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced and con­firmed three ad­di­tion­al can­di­dates who will con­test the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion un­der the par­ty’s ban­ner.

Among the new­ly an­nounced are Savi­ta Pierre who moved from con­stituen­cy cus­to­di­an to can­di­date for Tu­na­puna, as well as Walk­er for Diego Mar­tin West, and Rus­sell Chan for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, both of whom re­cent­ly ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to join the NTA.

“Their de­ci­sion sig­ni­fies a grow­ing move­ment of in­di­vid­u­als who recog­nise the need for bold lead­er­ship, a peo­ple-cen­tred ap­proach, and a com­mit­ment to na­tion­al progress,” a NTA state­ment said yes­ter­day.

This will be Walk­er’s sec­ond time con­test­ing the Diego West seat. In 2023, she con­test­ed the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions for the Good­wood/Glen­coe/La Puer­ta seat un­der the UNC.

Pierre is an ed­u­ca­tion con­sul­tant with over 14 years in ed­u­ca­tion and youth em­pow­er­ment, while Chan is an en­tre­pre­neur and phil­an­thropist. The NTA sent out In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day greet­ings yes­ter­day say­ing, “Women have al­ways been at the heart of progress, break­ing bar­ri­ers in pol­i­tics, busi­ness, ed­u­ca­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty lead­er­ship. Yet, de­spite these strides, too many women con­tin­ue to face gen­der-based vi­o­lence, eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties, and sys­temic in­equal­i­ties that hin­der their full par­tic­i­pa­tion in so­ci­ety. The NTA re­mains stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for women, ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies that sup­port women’s eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment, and strength­en­ing pro­tec­tions against vi­o­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion.”