Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

With just six weeks left in the life of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of­fered no hint of an elec­tion time­line, say­ing on­ly that it “could be any time” and that no de­ci­sion has yet been tak­en on dis­solv­ing the As­sem­bly.

He said the tim­ing of the elec­tion de­pends en­tire­ly on that process.

The As­sem­bly meets to­mor­row and then like­ly for the last time in No­vem­ber be­fore the term ends on its four-year an­niver­sary on De­cem­ber 6.

Au­gus­tine told the me­dia on Tues­day, “The de­ci­sion that we have to make is whether the House will dis­solve on its an­niver­sary for it­self or whether the House will meet and de­cide to dis­solve pri­or to. That has not been de­cid­ed as yet and that will ul­ti­mate­ly trig­ger when elec­tion could pos­si­bly be called.”

He added, “Well, based on the law, once the House is dis­solved, we have two to three months there­after to have the elec­tion. More than that, we have to al­so pay at­ten­tion to the statu­to­ry re­quire­ment in terms of what hap­pens be­tween when the writ is is­sued for the elec­tion and EBC do­ing the nec­es­saries. So the elec­tion can be any time.”

The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots was elect­ed in De­cem­ber 2021 fol­low­ing a his­toric 14–1 re­sult against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment. The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) was formed fol­low­ing mass res­ig­na­tions with­in the PDP less than a year in­to of­fice.

Au­gus­tine al­so con­firmed that in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal prepa­ra­tions have be­gun with­in the TPP, which cur­rent­ly leads the As­sem­bly. He said the par­ty has com­plet­ed its nom­i­na­tion process and will soon be­gin screen­ing can­di­dates.

“The elec­tions of­fi­cer of the par­ty has ad­vised me that there are about 55 nom­i­nees across the board,” he said. “They are cur­rent­ly do­ing the due dili­gence to en­sure that those that are nom­i­nat­ed are in fact mem­bers of the par­ty and that they meet the ba­sic cri­te­ria.”

He said the par­ty will move quick­ly in­to the next stage. “We should en­ter in­to screen­ing right af­ter the car­ni­val—the screen­ing of can­di­dates and then the an­nounc­ing of can­di­dates,” he said.

Au­gus­tine said nom­i­na­tions were re­ceived for all dis­tricts. “Af­ter we go through the screen­ing process, it will de­ter­mine whether or not we have can­di­dates for all 15 or whether there will be a de­sire by the par­ty to go out again for a dis­trict or two. But our process is mov­ing.”

He de­scribed the nom­i­na­tion process as com­pet­i­tive. “It is pret­ty com­pet­i­tive in some dis­tricts,” Au­gus­tine said. “From the re­port I have seen, I think the most com­pet­i­tive dis­trict will be Bethel dis­trict in terms of the num­ber of nom­i­nees. Buc­coo, Canaan close be­hind in terms of com­pet­i­tive­ness. But we have es­sen­tial­ly quite a stiff com­pe­ti­tion in most ar­eas.”

He said po­lit­i­cal par­ties will be­gin to in­ten­si­fy elec­tion prepa­ra­tions once the screen­ing phase is com­plete.