Gail Alexan­der

Em­bat­tled Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke has now called on Trinidad for help and par­tic­i­pa­tion in To­ba­go’s af­fairs.

“Trinidad, I call up­on you for help, I call up­on you to par­tic­i­pate in the af­fairs of To­ba­go. Let us not al­low Far­ley (Au­gus­tine) and his friends to steal the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic will of To­bag­o­ni­ans,” Duke said yes­ter­day in his lat­est ad­dress on his Face­book page.

Duke was speak­ing about the rift be­tween him­self and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and oth­er As­sem­bly­men, who re­cent­ly re­signed from the PDP on the eve of their one-year an­niver­sary of vic­to­ry in THA polls last De­cem­ber. They’ve all deemed them­selves In­de­pen­dents.

Yes­ter­day, Duke said he’d called on THA Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer Ab­by Tay­lor to de­clare their 13 seats va­cant but is yet to re­ceive a re­sponse in the form of a let­ter. How­ev­er, he said he ex­pect­ed her “... to do the ho­n­ourable thing and va­cate those seats.”

Duke added, “To­bag­o­ni­ans nev­er vot­ed for ‘In­de­pen­dents’. In­de­pen­dents nev­er cam­paigned or spent re­sources. They spoke from PDP plat­forms, held PDP ban­ners, wore PDP jer­seys - and one year lat­er, be­cause I called on them to fol­low the man­date or leave, they chose to leave and be­come ‘In­de­pen­dents’.”

Duke said in­de­pen­dent politi­cians are with­out any par­ty or struc­ture.

“They op­er­ate alone - they’re lone wolves ...” he said.

Duke said the 13 elect­ed As­sem­bly­men have “mul­ti­plied” to 16 when they added coun­cil­lors ap­point­ed by Au­gus­tine.

“So, 16 In­de­pen­dents against one PDP As­sem­bly­man and one PNM As­sem­bly­man in (THA’s) House - it’s re­al­ly a twist­ed day for jus­tice,” Duke said.

“With all that pow­er they wield, it’s a sad day for our democ­ra­cy as to­day or to­mor­row, per­sons be­long­ing to the PNM red par­ty or the yel­low par­ty - UNC - can de­cide to seize pow­er from ei­ther par­ty and would call them­selves in­de­pen­dents.”

Duke said nowhere in the Com­mon­wealth his­to­ry had such a sit­u­a­tion oc­curred. He said in an­tic­i­pa­tion of some­thing like this for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams “and the-then Op­po­si­tion pre­sent­ed law that if those who en­tered the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on a par­ty tick­et re­signed from the par­ty, they must va­cate the seat and a bye-elec­tion be held.”

Cit­ing that law - Sec­tion 49 (2.E) of the Con­sti­tu­tion - Duke added, “I throw my hands in the air and say the law will pro­tect its peo­ple and it­self.”

Duke didn’t sub­scribe to ar­gu­ments that the THA could have dif­fer­ent law. He said he be­lieved the supreme law is the law of Trinidad and To­ba­go and is the modus operan­di for all , whether cen­tral gov­ern­ment or a qua­si-gov­ern­ment, like the THA.

“We have to be very care­ful what we al­low in the To­ba­go space. In a small space as that, his­to­ry will tell it’s very im­por­tant that you al­low peo­ple to fol­low par­ty lines, be­cause one man alone can be dan­ger­ous, much less 13 peo­ple act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly can be ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous to To­bag­o­ni­ans,” he added, call­ing for Trinidad to help.

Duke said if the THA Act doesn’t recog­nise po­lit­i­cal par­ties, “could the po­lit­i­cal will of the As­sem­bly­man be more supreme than the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic will of the elec­torate? If so, then we’ve cre­at­ed a recipe for a to­tal­i­tar­i­an coun­try. This coun­try won’t be a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic one with a coun­try by ab­solute rule.”

He added, “We can­not al­low those who are lead­ing the coun­try to claim to be In­de­pen­dents, thus aban­don­ing any com­mit­ment to the peo­ple. They’ll say, ‘I nev­er told you that’, ‘You can’t hold me to noth­ing’.”