Yvonne Ba­boolal

If de­feat­ed To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) leader Ash­worth Jack re­mains at the helm, he will sink the par­ty much deep­er in­to the hole the To­ba­go elec­torate has dug for it.He has no choice but to re­sign and even if the TOP does not want him to re­sign, he should in­sist.

This was the ver­dict of po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Win­ford James, a To­bag­on­ian, as he re­spond­ed to ques­tions on what it would mean for TOP if Jack re­mained its leader in the wake of the par­ty's de­feat in last Mon­day's To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion.The To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil, led by in­cum­bent THA Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, gained an his­toric win when it took all of the is­land's 12 seats.

Jack, in con­ced­ing de­feat at the TOP's head­quar­ters at Old Mar­ket Square, To­ba­go, af­ter the an­nounce­ment of the re­sults, said he would de­cide on his role in the par­ty and in pol­i­tics "over the next 48 hours."More than 48 hours have passed and word is still to come from him. He told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day he was in a meet­ing and to call back. Sev­er­al at­tempts to reach him af­ter that proved un­suc­cess­ful.

Sources said the Prime Min­is­ter held a se­cret meet­ing with Jack and mem­bers of the TOP ex­ec­u­tive at Rovanel's, Bon Ac­cord, To­ba­go, af­ter the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the new THA as­sem­bly­men.The PM and To­ba­go-born gov­ern­ment min­is­ters Christlyn Moore, Del­mon Bak­er and Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin were present at the in­au­gu­ra­tion.The TOP re­ceived six in­vi­ta­tions, the T&T Guardian was told, but Jack was ab­sent.

James said re­sign­ing would ac­tu­al­ly help re­vive a lit­tle of Jack's lost cred­i­bil­i­ty.He added: "He had four seats and he lost all, in­clud­ing his own, some by a wide­mar­gin. Ob­vi­ous­ly, his cred­i­bil­i­ty would be at stake here. The ho­n­ourable thing would be for him to re­sign. I don't think he has a choice re­al­ly."

While some are look­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Min­is­ter of To­ba­go Af­fairs Del­mon Bak­er lead­ing the TOP, James does not be­lieve there are any suc­ces­sors to Jack.He agreed with the con­sen­sus of To­bag­o­ni­ans on the ground that if Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had not tak­en over the par­ty's cam­paign, the TOP would have won the elec­tion."I agree. It's part of what I be­lieve," James added.

Why did the as­sis­tance of the PM and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er hurt the TOP's cam­paign so much?It all has to do with To­ba­go pride, James said."Jack lost his au­ton­o­my, his lead­er­ship of the TOP. The par­ty was seen as part of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. He be­came sub­or­di­nate to the PP in a way To­bag­o­ni­ans would not coun­te­nance. They felt he would not lead in the in­ter­est of To­ba­go and would take or­ders from un­seen peo­ple," he added.

James be­lieves To­bag­o­ni­ans did not vote on the PNM-led THA's per­for­mance over the last 12 years but on the PM and her team lead­ing To­ba­go."Jack was seen as al­low­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and Warn­er to take over the cam­paign. It sug­gest­ed he is weak and a pup­pet or felt it was the best strat­e­gy," he added.

Asked if Lon­don did not al­low the PNM, a Trinidad par­ty, and its leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who al­so cam­paigned with the To­ba­go Coun­cil dur­ing the elec­tions, to do the same, he said they worked be­hind the scenes."That's the key. You can re­source from be­hind but should not take over. Row­ley spoke but Lon­don al­ways took cen­tre stage. Per­sad-Bisses­sar hugged cen­tre stage." he said.

James said the Prime Min­is­ter's most brazen act was dar­ing to lay a bill in Par­lia­ment on self-gov­ern­ment for To­ba­go.Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, a Trinidad-based po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, was cau­tious when asked to com­ment on the im­pli­ca­tions for the TOP if Jack stayed on.He said: "That is a de­ci­sion for Jack and his par­ty. We can't say whether they should re­move him or not. I can't say whether it would be bet­ter for the TOP if he stays."

Ra­goonath felt Jack was "de­monised" as a pup­pet of the PM. "He will have to break away (from the Gov­ern­ment) if he wants to trans­form the im­age of the TOP," he said.Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, com­ment­ing on how To­bag­o­ni­ans vot­ed, told the T&T Guardian last Tues­day no sin­gle fac­tor was ever re­spon­si­ble.He agreed the close link be­tween the TOP and the PP played a part in the de­feat of the TOP.

The is­sues sur­round­ing Jack him­self, in­clud­ing his mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar house, al­so added to his demise, he added.Lon­don be­lieved, how­ev­er, that peo­ple did not on­ly vote "against" in an elec­tion."Many be­lieved we per­formed cred­itably," he said.