Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says To­bag­o­ni­ans may know the elec­tion date with­in the next sev­en days, even as he works to man­age grow­ing frus­tra­tion among To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty sup­port­ers over the de­ci­sion to re­open nom­i­na­tions in two con­stituen­cies.

Au­gus­tine con­firmed he in­tends to an­nounce the date no lat­er than De­cem­ber 1, telling re­porters, “Yes, more than like­ly be­fore the month end, or by the ear­li­est, maybe first of De­cem­ber. But very soon we’ll have an elec­tion date.”

But in­side the par­ty, ten­sion has been ris­ing. Sup­port­ers in Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant and Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah have open­ly com­plained about the screen­ing com­mit­tee’s de­ci­sion to re­turn to the com­mu­ni­ties for ad­di­tion­al nom­i­nees af­ter sev­er­al con­tenders had al­ready been in­ter­viewed.

Au­gus­tine said he un­der­stands the re­ac­tion but in­sists the choice is a de­lib­er­ate strat­e­gy, not in­sta­bil­i­ty. He ex­plained that both dis­tricts re­main too close to call, and com­mu­ni­ty feed­back has been sharply di­vid­ed.

“Some­times it’s good to pause, ask if there are oth­er op­tions, and re­view the thing a sec­ond or a third time,” he said. “You want to make sure that what you’re go­ing to de­cide on is re­al­ly what the com­mu­ni­ty will sup­port.”

He said the par­ty has used the same ap­proach be­fore, ref­er­enc­ing the last gen­er­al elec­tion. “When we had the gen­er­al elec­tion in April, for ex­am­ple, we did hold and go back out and as­sess,” he said, re­call­ing that the fi­nal can­di­date, then-Sec­re­tary Samp­son, went on to win To­ba­go West.

Au­gus­tine said the de­lay should not be read as con­flict, even if sup­port­ers are ex­press­ing their frus­tra­tions pub­licly. “It’s not an in­dict­ment on any of the nom­i­nees,” he said. “We con­tin­ue to re­view them and where there is ex­treme com­pe­ti­tion, some­times it’s good to pause.”

The Chief Sec­re­tary al­so pushed back at the PNM’s com­men­tary on the sit­u­a­tion. “The PNM will do what­ev­er they want,” he said. “We have gone through a fall­out with Mr Duke… and we have sur­vived it all. I don’t think that this is any­thing.”

He added that in­ter­nal de­bate is nor­mal in the TPP. “This is part of the storm­ing process in the democ­ra­cy that we have,” he said, adding that par­ty mem­bers are en­cour­aged to voice their opin­ions.

With the elec­tion date com­ing in days, Au­gus­tine said the par­ty is en­ter­ing what he de­scribed as “boot camp” mode to sharp­en its cam­paign strat­e­gy. “At this stage, it is about spend­ing time fi­ness­ing the strat­e­gy,” he said. “Pol­i­tics is a sci­en­tif­ic op­er­a­tion. You have to look at the thing sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly and work it.”

He said he will meet with all suc­cess­ful and un­suc­cess­ful nom­i­nees be­fore mak­ing the an­nounce­ment.

Be­low is the TPP’s full list of con­firmed can­di­dates as of to­day, with two con­stituen­cies still un­der re­view:

TPP — SE­LECT­ED CAN­DI­DATES LIST

BETHEL / NEW GRANGE

Dar­ren Hes­tor Hen­ry

BELLE GAR­DEN / GLAM­OR­GAN

Dr Faith Breb­nor

BETHES­DA / LES COTEAUX

Zor­isha Ame­na Hack­ett

BUC­COO / MT PLEAS­ANT

PEND­ING

MA­SON HALL / MO­RI­AH

PEND­ING

MT ST GEORGE / GOOD­WOOD

Megan Ce­ci­ly Mor­ri­son

SCAR­BOR­OUGH / MT GRACE

Trevor Williamson James

LAM­BEAU / LOW­LANDS

Wane Ma­conie “Wasp” Clarke

BON AC­CORD / CROWN POINT

Nike­ta Per­cy

SIG­NAL HILL / PA­TIENCE HILL

Nigel Dave Taitt

BAGATELLE / BA­CO­LET

Nathisha Charles-Pan­tin

PLY­MOUTH / BLACK ROCK

Keron Kirston Duke

ROX­BOR­OUGH / AR­GYLE

Or­lan­do Kerr

DAR­REL SPRING / WHIM

Ricky Michael Joe­field

PAR­LATU­VI­ER / L’ANSE FOUR­MI / SPEY­SIDE

Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine