Abdulah: Retrenchment boosts MSJ

RECENT retrenchment at Petrotrin and other places has brought added political support to the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) ahead of this year’s local government elections and next year’s general elections, party leader David Abdulah told Newsday yesterday.

“The MSJ is actually having a major planning meeting this week to discuss our strategy for the two upcoming elections,” he said.

“There’s no doubt that the policy actions of this PNM Government have impacted very negatively on workers generally because of policies like austerity, loss of jobs at Petrotrin and TSTT, attacks on trade unions and rising prices with no commensurate increase in wages and salaries.”

Abdulah said working people and the poor are feeling the brunt of economic adjustment, while the wealthy are continuing to do fabulously well.

“The MSJ has clearly got additional support in the past few months in several areas and we will be building on it going towards the elections.”

Abdulah said the MSJ is the country’s only option, said both the UNC and PNM each had their opportunity but blew it.

“Only the MSJ has been walking the talk, working with people and fighting for people.”

Newsday asked if the MSJ could find a place in a political system that is polarised between two ethnically-based main parties.

“That’s the challenge,” Abdulah admitted.

“I think increasingly people in the country recognise that this type of politics of two traditional parties has resulted in the society and the country degenerating in every aspect when we think of the economics and the social relations, the violence, the breakdown in our structure and systems.”

He blamed the two-party system for an inability to make use of the country’s God-given resources to create a better life for everyone.

“So I think more and more people are realising that the politics of UNC/PNM are bankrupt and are destroying the country, and so they are looking for away out of that.”

Newsday asked about small, third parties being squeezed out, between two big parties, in the Westminster system, and whether small parties should advocate electoral reform.

Abdulah said, “We have major policy proposals for constitutional reform. Proportional representation is one of them, for the House of Representatives to be partly composed of persons elected by the first-past-the-post (Westminster) system and partly by proportional representation.”

He lamented little interest from the two main parties (PNM and UNC).

“It goes against their interest. They’re happy for the system to continue because it is a winner-take-all system.”