PROF HAMID GHANY

hamid.ghany@sta.uwi.edu

As the one-year an­niver­sary of the elec­tion of the PDP by a 14-1 ma­jor­i­ty to take con­trol of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ap­proach­es on Tues­day, it is op­por­tune to re­flect on the split that has oc­curred in the PDP over the last year.

There was a bap­tism of fire for Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke who faced a chal­lenge from then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi over his dual roles of be­ing Pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) as well as be­com­ing the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the THA.

That be­came a mi­nor is­sue com­pared to the full-blown at­tack on Chief Sec­re­tary, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, by Duke on Sep­tem­ber 7 in­stant over the is­sue of fund­ing for a Rox­bor­ough folk group’s vis­it to New York. That marked the be­gin­ning of a ma­jor schism in the PDP that has got pro­gres­sive­ly worse.

On Sep­tem­ber 9 in­stant, Duke an­nounced that Far­ley Au­gus­tine, Faith B Yis­rael and Ali­cia Roberts-Pa­ter­son were re­moved as deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of the PDP.

By Sep­tem­ber 15 in­stant, Duke re­signed as deputy chief sec­re­tary of the THA while con­tin­u­ing to hold the po­si­tion of the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PDP. By Sep­tem­ber 19 in­stant, a sit­ting of the THA was held to elect a new deputy chief sec­re­tary to fill the va­can­cy cre­at­ed by Duke’s res­ig­na­tion.

In a sit­ting that was filled with dra­ma, Dr Faith B Yis­rael was nom­i­nat­ed, how­ev­er, the lone PNM As­sem­bly­man and Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris nom­i­nat­ed Duke for the po­si­tion that he had just re­signed. Duke did not de­cline the nom­i­na­tion and, as there was no le­git­i­mate sec­on­der, Dr Faith B Yis­rael was de­clared elect­ed. She was sworn in­to of­fice lat­er that day by Act­ing Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

So whith­er the PDP in To­ba­go? Duke has con­tin­ued to at­tack his par­ty col­leagues in the As­sem­bly with a fe­roc­i­ty that puts the ac­tu­al mi­nor­i­ty leader in the shade. Ef­fec­tive­ly, Duke has be­come the op­po­si­tion to the mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil. So where does that leave the PDP in To­ba­go?

What start­ed as an in­dige­nous home-grown To­ba­go par­ty sub­se­quent­ly mor­phed in­to a na­tion­al par­ty that set up head­quar­ters in Barataria and is now pre­pared to con­test the next lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in Trinidad as well as the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

With the PNM sali­vat­ing over the prospect of the UNC, PDP, PEP and NTA all like­ly to con­test the next lo­cal gov­ern­ment and gen­er­al elec­tions with tremen­dous vote-split­ting po­ten­tial from a Trinidad per­spec­tive, what will be the sit­u­a­tion in To­ba­go?

If all the PDP mem­bers of the THA, be­sides Duke, de­cide to re­sign their mem­ber­ship of the PDP and re­main as mem­bers of the THA they can con­tin­ue to gov­ern as long as they stay to­geth­er. There is no cross­ing-the-floor pro­vi­sion in the THA Act, so this is­sue will not arise.

How­ev­er, they will have to form a home­grown To­ba­go par­ty to seek the in­ter­ests of To­ba­go in a man­ner that was orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed for the PDP. There are forces in Trinidad that want the PDP to en­ter Trinidad pol­i­tics and are pre­pared to fi­nance such a move. Get­ting in­volved in Trinidad pol­i­tics leaves the door open for a home­grown To­ba­go par­ty to arise.

With fur­ther re­forms of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween To­ba­go and Trinidad still in the pipeline, there will be a fu­ture need for a po­lit­i­cal par­ty that will fo­cus ex­clu­sive­ly on To­ba­go is­sues in the in­ter­est of the To­ba­go pop­u­la­tion. That is the op­por­tu­ni­ty that will arise should the cur­rent mem­bers of the THA, oth­er than Duke, de­cide to leave the PDP.

They will have to ar­tic­u­late an agen­da based on their con­sul­ta­tions with the To­ba­go pop­u­la­tion to de­ter­mine a new way for­ward. Their de­ci­sion will re­volve around be­ing a To­ba­go-based par­ty that will con­fine it­self to ar­tic­u­lat­ing To­ba­go is­sues and in­ter­ests.

How that course of ac­tion will play out will de­pend very much on the kind of par­ty struc­ture that is put in place and whether the cur­rent lead­er­ship in the As­sem­bly will be re­flect­ed in the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al arrange­ments for such a par­ty.

The PNM and the PDP will be­come the two main par­ties that would have roots in Trinidad as well as in To­ba­go, while a home­grown To­ba­go par­ty will not have to wor­ry about any Trinidad op­er­a­tions and bal­anc­ing its in­ter­ests.

The mo­ment is com­ing when Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his col­leagues will have a ma­jor de­ci­sion to make.