Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah says he is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the can­di­da­cy of two labour rep­re­sen­ta­tives un­der a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ban­ner in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, hours be­fore for­mer Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union sec­re­tary gen­er­al Clyde El­der and OW­TU vice pres­i­dent Ernesto Ke­sar were re­vealed as the can­di­dates for La Brea and Point Fortin, Ab­du­lah said an of­fi­cial state­ment on the de­vel­op­ment will be re­leased in the com­ing days.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tives, nom­i­nat­ed by the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), were the sole nom­i­nees to face the UNC’s screen­ing com­mit­tee for those seats.

Point Fortin and La Brea are both con­sid­ered PNM strong­holds. 

The UNC has stat­ed that the arrange­ment is part of a “coali­tion of in­ter­ests,” which in­cludes al­liances with the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), OW­TU and oth­er en­ti­ties. 

Last month, the MSJ an­nounced that the par­ty will not con­test this year’s gen­er­al elec­tion. Ab­du­lah in­di­cat­ed that the par­ty will in­stead fo­cus on build­ing its ca­pac­i­ty to gov­ern ef­fec­tive­ly in the fu­ture.

Back in 2012, Ab­du­lah with­drew from the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment af­ter cit­ing sev­er­al is­sues that the par­ty had raised but were sub­se­quent­ly not ad­dressed by the gov­ern­ment. He said the PP’s fail­ure to “live up to the Fyz­abad de­c­la­ra­tion and our man­i­festo com­mit­ments are tan­ta­mount to our break­ing the so­cial con­tract with the cit­i­zens.”

The MSJ broke ranks from the PP two years af­ter sign­ing on to the Fyz­abad Ac­cord.