Casan­dra Thomp­son�Forbes

The ex­ec­u­tive of the To­ba­go arm of the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) has sev­ered ties with the na­tion­al par­ty, head­ed by po­lit­i­cal leader Jack Warn­er.

The an­nounce­ment was made by the for­mer re­gion­al co-or­di­na­tor Akeil Ab­dul­lah yes­ter­day dur­ing a talk show on To­ba­go Chan­nel Five.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 387 mem­bers have al­so ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions from the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Ab­dul­lah said the ILP did not have To­ba­go at heart.

"To­ba­go has to re­ject the ILP, ef­fec­tive to­day. We will not stand for the kind of pol­i­tics that is tak­ing place there be­cause we To­bag­o­ni­ans be­lieve and we know that this can on­ly re­sult in more chaos and we don't want to con­tribute to that kind of ill-de­vel­op­ment in the na­tion­al land­scape," he added.

Ab­dul­lah, who stood as the shad­ow sec­re­tary for the Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture, was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion of re­gion­al co-or­di­na­tor, To­ba­go, in May fol­low­ing the death of Li­onel Cok­er who held the po­si­tion since 2013.

In re­sponse, Warn­er said he was not sur­prised at the turn of events and that would not hin­der the par­ty's cam­paign in To­ba­go.

Warn­er said they got a hint of what was com­ing ear­li­er in the week in a state­ment is­sued to the me­dia.

"We were not com­plete­ly sur­prised when re­ports reached us ear­li­er this week that Ab­dul­lah was with­hold­ing par­ty in­for­ma­tion and para­pher­na­lia from our cam­paign teams in To­ba­go East and West.

"The ILP's cam­paign in To­ba­go has in no way been af­fect­ed by this morn­ing's de­vel­op­ments as two cam­paign teams have been con­vened to con­tin­ue our prepa­ra­tions there," he added.

Warn­er said the teams were be­ing led by Paul Pe­ters in To­ba­go West and Por­tia Pow­der in To­ba­go East.

The ILP would an­nounce its two can­di­dates for To­ba­go soon, he said.

Warn­er re­called that at a na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing of the ILP in June Ab­dul­lah con­firmed his will­ing­ness to con­tin­ue the work start­ed by Li­onel Cok­er who was found dead in a ho­tel room.

Sev­er­al ILP se­nior mem­bers have al­ready re­signed, in­clud­ing Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Robin Mon­tano, An­na De­onar­ine and Vir­mala Balka­ran, for­mer chair­man of the Youth Arm of the par­ty.

Warn­er said the ILP would con­test all 41 elec­toral seats.