Gail Ale­an­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

On­ly two weeks ago, late D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian had been ap­proved by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to con­test the seat again in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions.

And now, the PNM will have to seek a new nom­i­nee to choose a can­di­date to con­test it—and the D’Abadie/O’Meara seat in Par­lia­ment re­mains va­cant un­til elec­tions are called and an MP is elect­ed.

This, fol­low­ing Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s trag­ic death yes­ter­day in a fire which oc­curred around 5.30 am at her Ari­ma home. Al­so killed in the blaze were two of her five chil­dren, Je­si­ah and Xi­anne.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian, who was elect­ed in 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions, had been screened by the PNM’s Screen­ing team on De­cem­ber 2 for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. She had been un­op­posed and had the full back­ing of the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and 27 par­ty groups, in­clud­ing the Women’s and Youth League units in the area. She re­ceived the Screen­ing team’s nod.

Fol­low­ing Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s death, of­fi­cials of the area said yes­ter­day they would await the par­ty’s in­struc­tions on any fur­ther step. PNM par­ty sources couldn’t com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion at this point. They not­ed the pe­ri­od of mourn­ing and that fu­ner­al plans are cur­rent­ly the fo­cus.

When Par­lia­ment re­sumes in Jan­u­ary af­ter the Christ­mas re­cess, Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s seat in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives—be­tween PNM MPs Bri­an Man­ning and Kennedy Richards—will re­main va­cant un­til gen­er­al elec­tion is held.

Ac­cord­ing to reg­u­la­tions, a by-elec­tion to elect a re­place­ment can­not be held once par­ties en­ter an elec­tion year. The 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions were in Au­gust 2020. Gen­er­al elec­tions are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due by Au­gust 2025—and No­vem­ber 2025 as the out­er­most lim­it.

A griev­ing Man­ning said yes­ter­day, “My heart aches over the loss of my col­league, friend and sis­ter, Lisa. We came in­to the Par­lia­ment to­geth­er and sat next to each oth­er in the low­er house for four years. She be­came fam­i­ly. This hurts more than any­thing and I can­not be­gin to un­der­stand what her fam­i­ly is en­dur­ing at the mo­ment.”

He added, “She was ex­treme­ly ex­cit­ed and hum­bled to have earned the sup­port of her com­mu­ni­ty and par­ty when nom­i­nat­ed to rep­re­sent them for an­oth­er term in the Par­lia­ment and I was ex­cit­ed to see her im­ple­ment the plans she had for them. Lisa will be dear­ly missed. She went be­yond the call as an MP and did the same in her per­son­al life for oth­ers. This is a trag­ic loss to all that sim­ply can­not be quan­ti­fied. I will miss my sis­ter.”

Mor­ris-Ju­lian was the grand­daugh­ter of well-known late Ari­ma busi­ness­man and coun­cil­lor Leroy Mor­ris, who be­come may­or. Mor­ris-Ju­lian, who was part of the PNM since her teens, fol­lowed in his foot­steps to be­come Ari­ma may­or al­so.

She at­tend­ed Ari­ma Girls’ RC and St Joseph’s Con­vent, St Joseph, then St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary and went on to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies study­ing lit­er­a­ture and pol­i­tics. Mor­ris-Ju­lian taught at sec­ondary school for over a decade be­fore en­ter­ing pol­i­tics in 2013.

State­ments from the PNM and the PNM’s Women’s League - on which Mor­ris-Ju­lian was vice chair­man - de­tailed her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, en­ter­ing the po­lit­i­cal land­scape when she con­test­ed Ari­ma Cen­tral in the 2013 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion.

The PNM added, “She con­vinc­ing­ly won her dis­trict, and in 2015, she was ap­point­ed as the deputy may­or of Ari­ma when the va­can­cy arose. In 2016, she was ap­point­ed as the sec­ond fe­male may­or of the Roy­al Char­tered Bor­ough of Ari­ma, and was reap­point­ed in that ca­pac­i­ty in 2019, hav­ing again won Ari­ma Cen­tral for the suc­ces­sive Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.”

In 2020, Mor­ris-Ju­lian be­came the PNM’s D’Abadie/O’Meara can­di­date af­ter is­sues arose with con­tro­ver­sies con­cern­ing then-MP An­cil An­toine, who was ini­tial­ly cho­sen as the can­di­date. An­toine had crit­i­cised per­ceived non-sup­port­ers, and he had al­so used strong lan­guage to crit­i­cise the US. His can­di­da­cy was with­drawn, and Mor­ris-Ju­lian arose as a can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy - which was the fi­nal one to be se­lect­ed.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian, who was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, in 2020 had cred­it­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as her men­tor in en­ter­ing pol­i­tics in 2013. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Mor­ris-Ju­lian had five chil­dren rang­ing from six to age 25 and had of­ten spo­ken of her close-knit sup­port­ive fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing her hus­band, moth­er and sis­ters. One of her sis­ters, Sian, was at the Ari­ma house when yes­ter­day’s fire took place.