Casan­dra Thomp­son-Forbes

Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don has brand­ed Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple Ash­worth Jack a cheater.Re­fer­ring to the re­cent­ly held THA leader's de­bate host­ed by the T&T De­bates Com­mis­sion on Thurs­day night, Lon­don told the crowd at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Ply­mouth on Fri­day that their on­ly choice for rep­re­sen­ta­tion was God­win Adams since the TOP's can­di­date Cer­ti­ca Williams was aligned with some­one whose in­tegri­ty was in ques­tion.

"Broth­er and sis­ters, as a To­bag­on­ian 'ah shame', be­cause in the full glare of na­tion­al, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia Ash­worth Jack cheat­ed. I don't care how they spin it and I don't care how they try to use it, Ash­worth Jack cheat­ed last night in full glare of the pub­lic," he said.

Lon­don told par­ty sup­port­ers that dur­ing the weeks of ne­go­ti­a­tions they were in­formed by of­fi­cials of the De­bates Com­mis­sion that notes could have been made dur­ing the de­bate but no notes were al­lowed to be brought to the de­bate. He ex­plained, how­ev­er, that Jack dis­re­gard­ed that guide­line and brought cue cards to the podi­um.

"I know when I was go­ing to school and we have tests, you can't car­ry pa­per. You go­ing in with me, my pen, my book and my brain I didn't have to sign a con­tract for that... I was not look­ing be­cause I was not look­ing for that, but it was af­ter the event that Ho­choy (Charles) said 'I know the man from long time so I had my eyes on him.' Ash­worth Jack was able to quote CSO sta­tis­tics on about three or four oc­ca­sions. Who is go­ing in a de­bate with CSO sta­tis­tics in their head?

Cather­ine Ku­mar, pres­i­dent of the T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce, has been record­ed as say­ing that the lead­ers were not sup­posed to bring writ­ten notes to the de­bate, how­ev­er, Ash­worth Jack did noth­ing wrong since the guide­line was not writ­ten.The De­bates Com­mis­sion plans to deal with this is­sue in fu­ture de­bates.

Jack, in a CNC3 re­port last night, al­lud­ed to a pos­si­ble col­lu­sion be­tween Lon­don and the Plat­form for Truth leader, Charles as he de­fend­ed him­self against claims he had breached the rules of the de­bate.