(Trinidad Express) Member of Parliament for Pointe-a-Pierre Errol McLeod yesterday resigned as political leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), paving the way for the party to unleash its electoral machinery to get into government on its own.
The announcement came even as party activists called for the MSJ to sever its ties with the ruling People’s Partnership over its treatment of the working class and, in particular, the policy decision of the Government to place a wage cap on public sector negotiations.
The MSJ, one arm of the five-party coaltion People’s Partnership Government, will now be headed by Government Senator and union leader David Abdulah, the leader of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Non-Governmental Organisations (FITUN).
Abdulah, a critic against the Government wage cap, has publicly distanced himself over the selection of directors and chairmen of State organisations, questioning the transparency of the selection process which, he said, was based on politcal affiliation and not on merit.
McLeod announced the latest development yesterday at the Communications Workers Union Hall on Henry Street, Port of Spain.
He was surrounded by key players in the MSJ, including trade union leaders: president general of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union Ancel Roget, president of the Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union Vincent Cabrera and president of the Communications Workers Union Joseph Remy and fellow MSJ executives.
Cabrera has repeated publicly that the MSJ is the political vehicle to seek the interest of workers and boasted that unions controlled 90 per cent of the floating vote, a determining factor as to which party got into government.
“We have been considering this for some time now, a brief couple of months but it was decided and accepted by the central executive of the MSJ and the Activist Council that I would step down from the office of political leader and reside in the plenipotentiary position as a member of the national executive as we concentrate our efforts on the labour agenda and building the party,” McLeod said.
McLeod described an almost electoral campaign as part of MSJ’s plans for the next few months.
“We would be on the ground touching warm bodies as one would do in an election campaign, that is becoming more and more necessary and more and more demanding,” he said.
He said the MSJ was forced to take stock of not just what they have already accomplished but of the work still to be done to build the party further.
“And I did not want the process that we must take to be inhibited in any way by one who might be considered to be an absentee leader of this developing political movement,” he said.
McLeod said his “being excused from the office of political leader of MSJ” will help him better effect all the things that fall under his portfolio as Minister of Labour and a Parliamentary representative and pledged his support to the fledgling party going forward.
“I think that the MSJ has the greatest potential to become the premier political party representative,” he added.
Abdulah was elected through due process within the party, he said the MSJ was still represented and recognised as part of the Government.
“When comrade McLeod speaks in Parliament he is speaking as member of national executive and has the support of the executive of the MSJ,” he said.
“Our party is very united and very strong,” he said.
Abdulah said this new development will not have any negative reprecussions on the People’s Partnership.
“Our party is independent as are all the other political parties. It has its own structure, its own constitution,” he said.
Depsite this reassurance, the MSJ is setting the stage to strengthen it own political ambitions and could throw its hat in the ring as a legitimate labour party when the next election bell rings.
