Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Lack of po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise by To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) Leader, Ash­worth Jack, is open­ing the door for the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to be suc­cess­ful in the up­com­ing May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. This is the view of De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress (DAC) leader Ho­choy Charles, as he ad­dressed a gath­er­ing at Ply­mouth on Sat­ur­day. He said er­rors be­ing made by Jack in To­ba­go could very well ham­per the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led part­ner­ship in form­ing the next gov­ern­ment. Charles said To­bag­o­ni­ans were adamant about change on the is­land, since the an­nounce­ment of the gen­er­al elec­tion date, be­cause of the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott), con­struc­tion of a church in the Heights of Gu­napo, and the Prop­er­ty Tax Bill.

How­ev­er, Charles said, with­in re­cent weeks, sev­er­al To­bag­o­ni­ans were singing a dif­fer­ent tune. He added: "When the elec­tion date was called, the mood in coun­try at that time was to get rid of Prime Patrick Man­ning and the PNM. "That was the mood in the coun­try by the trade unions, busi­ness peo­ple, pub­lic ser­vants. Even with­in his own par­ty peo­ple did not want to hear him. "Peo­ple did not want to hear about Patrick Man­ning and the PNM. "But, we have wit­nessed, over the last cou­ple of weeks in T&T, be­cause of the er­rors be­ing made by both the part­ner­ship in Trinidad and the TOP, peo­ple once more want to re­con­sid­er giv­ing Patrick Man­ning a chance. "We the peo­ple of To­ba­go lack po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence; we do not un­der­stand the game.? We have, once again, giv­en the Prime Min­is­ter a voice; the peo­ple have re-opened his book they closed on him. "They want to try again, be­cause they are say­ing they do not know if to trust this new thing, be­cause of the er­rors be­ing made."

Charles said, how­ev­er, that while many were now back ped­alling, the un­de­cid­ed vot­ers held the key to who will form the next gov­ern­ment. He said he would hold­ing po­lit­i­cal meet­ings in the up­com­ing week, The Plat­form of Truth, for the in­de­ci­sive vot­ers. He said records from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion showed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 18,000 opt­ed to re­frain from vot­ing in the last gen­er­al elec­tion. "There is a group of vot­ers in To­ba­go who are not fol­low­ers of any of those par­ties.? They do not even at­tend meet­ings; they are lis­ten­ing to the voice that speaks to them about the is­sues af­fect­ing the coun­try. "The dan­ger that will be­fall us if they do not par­tic­i­pate; these votes can make a dif­fer­ence." Charles said for too long To­bag­o­ni­ans had been on the los­ing end of the ring. The two To­ba­go seats should no longer be used as a bar­gain­ing agent to help a po­lit­i­cal par­ty form the next gov­ern­ment, but in­stead give the peo­ple of To­ba­go a voice in Par­lia­ment.