This coun­try’s Am­bas­sador to Cos­ta Ri­ca, Tracey David­son-Ce­les­tine, has be­come the first woman to lead the To­ba­go's PNM Coun­cil.

She beat Kevin Charles—who is al­so the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA)—by a land­slide at the polls. David­son-Ce­les­tine took home 3,150 votes while Charles man­aged to poll 2,142 votes.

David­son-Ce­les­tine and scores of sup­port­ers ar­rived short­ly be­fore 10 pm at the PNM's To­ba­go Coun­cil's of­fices at Scar­bor­ough. She was elat­ed to have been elect­ed and promised to get the heal­ing process un­der­way with­in the To­ba­go arm of the PNM, in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

David­son-Ce­les­tine told re­porters she has a 100-day plan—start­ing with rec­on­cil­i­a­tion—to bring to­geth­er all the lead­ers and losers of the elec­tions and those in To­ba­go East and West, to fill any gaps that sep­a­rate them. She said 2020 is crit­i­cal, since To­ba­go would be fac­ing both the THA elec­tions and a Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

David­son-Ce­les­tine al­so re-stat­ed her in­ten­tion to re­sign her post­ing as High Com­mis­sion­er to Cos­ta Ri­ca as soon as it be­comes pos­si­ble.

She said women can do what they de­sire once they have the will pow­er.

“I want to tell all women that every­thing is pos­si­ble,” she en­cour­ages. “You have to be de­ter­mined. You have to be very pas­sion­ate about those things that you be­lieve in, and go for it, and at some point in time, the vic­to­ry will come.”

David­son Ce­les­tine said she was of the view that noth­ing was said dur­ing the cam­paign that would have caused an­i­mos­i­ty among par­ty mem­bers. She al­so thanked out­go­ing leader, Kelvin Charles, who con­grat­u­lat­ed her and con­ced­ed de­feat be­fore the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment of the win­ner.

A sombre Kelvin Charles speaks with the media after losing Sunday's elections

VINDRA GOPAUL

A som­bre look­ing Charles showed up at the venue and left be­fore the ar­rival of Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine. Charles said he had faced a vi­cious cam­paign from his op­po­nents who had at­tacked him. He told re­porters, that he was mind­ful not sink to their lev­el, and said he was proud of the work he did with the PNM, and al­so as the Chief Sec­re­tary since 2016.

Kelvin Charles, who was ac­com­pa­nied by his wife and a hand­ful of sup­port­ers, said he thought that he would have won the elec­tion. When asked whether his team did enough to reach out to Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus and Joel Jack—both of whom backed David­son-Ce­les­tine—he re­spond­ed:

"That’s an in­ter­est­ing ques­tion. Clear­ly, if you fol­low the pat­tern, it was or­ches­trat­ed."

Kelvin Charles said he wants time to re­flect on his loss­es and in­di­cat­ed he would speak af­ter he had analysed the re­sults. He al­so con­firmed his in­ten­tion to con­tin­ue his work as Chief Sec­re­tary and ex­pressed hope that the par­ty was strong enough to go in­to the Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

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Sto­ry by SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Pho­tos by VIN­DRA GOPAUL