ALANDO Terrelonge is the latest of a bright, young team of Generation 2000 (G2K) graduates emerging, potentially, as the new leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Two former recent G2K presidents, Delano Seiveright and Floyd Green, and Terrelonge, who was the legal adviser to the party’s young professionals affiliate, are seeking their political foothold in Parliament in the February 25 general election.

All three have a significant opportunity at this time to move up from under the shadow of their aging mentors as part of a new generation of JLP leadership, which is destined to take over the 72-year-old party in the very near future.

They have already made significant inroads in their constituencies, with Terrelonge making a very impressionable entrance challenging to the equally youthful People’s National Party (PNP) candidate, Arnaldo Brown, in the recently created East Central St Catherine constituency.

Since his emergence as a spokesman for G2K, the dreadlocked Terrelonge has consistently championed the rights of the poor, young Jamaicans he often represent in the criminal courts, and he sees himself as a “champion of the rights of poor Jamaicans”.

One of his major concerns over the years, and an issue which he is happy to be associated with as an attorney-at-law representing youths whose future had been endangered by their involvement with ganja, has been the move to decriminalise its use.

“As an attorney, I was involved in a number of these cases. Just being at court exposed me to some of these laws. I would see so many young men, 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 20-year-old, just coming to court to face, what I called, a very draconian law, and I thought to myself, I mean, why do we have these laws still in the books,” Terrelonge explained.

“The way I look at it is that, yes, they might have transgressed at 18, but at 21 they are a bit older. They probably want to join the police force. I said to myself, ‘you know, we need someone to champion the rights of these poor people’,” he added.

Terrelonge has been responsible for a number of statements from G2K dealing with issues critical to the least fortunate over the years. He has also published a number of articles in both major newspapers since 2010, including on the effect of the provisions of the Dangerous Drugs Act on the lives of young men.

A partner in the legal firm Bailey, Terrelonge and Allen since 2001, he currently heads the criminal division for the principal office.

A graduate of Campion College, Terrelonge pursued his legal studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI), where he attained his law degree in 1998. He enrolled at the Norman Manley Law School in 1998, where he completed his legal training in 2000 and was subsequently admitted to the Jamaican Bar that year.

In 2008, he was awarded the Chevening Scholarship by the British Council, to pursue his Master’s Degree at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom, where he studied courses related to international relations; international criminal law; and international human rights.

In addition to criminal litigation, his other areas of practice include real estate and conveyance; civil litigation; and personal injury.

Born into a very strong JLP constituency — St Andrew North Eastern — which has been represented by another JLP attorney-at-law, Delroy Chuck, since 1997, and from one of Chuck’s strongholds, Grant’s Pen Road, Terrelonge went into Portmore, St Catherine as the most likely hunting ground to enter representational politics.

“When I went into Newlands, what I saw I would describe as a labyrinth of zinc, and I just thought to myself that it cannot be that for 40 years these communities were represented by elected persons. What about zinc removal? What about paving the roads? And, what about the water supply? And I thought to myself, these people do need adequate representation,” he observed.

“I went to Gregory Park, as well, and again there were areas ‘like Gulf and Compound’, where the drains were not even being cleared. You have a lot of gullies that need clearing, places need bushing, there is the need for vector control. There was an outbreak of Chik-V and any minute now it could be with ZikV. I mean these people need proper representation,” he insisted.

He said that he would like to get a housing programme going, if elected, because the people are living in sub-standard housing conditions in the poorer sections of the constituency.

“One room, or a zinc fence and a board house? This is 2016. As a child growing up in Grant’s Pen in the 1980s, we lived in a one-bedroom board house, but there has been progress since that. When you return to Grant’s Pen now, what was a one-bedroom board house is now a two-bedroom concrete structure.”

“I don’t see that kind of movement in Gregory Park, certain parts of Newlands, and certain parts of Grange Lane! So being involved in politics for me is about providing a means of social justice for ordinary Jamaicans who need a voice; who need someone who believes in them, who can champion their cause, who can really represent them in the House of Parliament,” he said.