Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine says he was sur­prised by Wat­son Duke’s de­ci­sion to pub­licly en­dorse the TPP ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tion, but he wel­comes the sup­port.

In a me­dia re­port yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine was quot­ed as say­ing that he ap­pre­ci­at­ed the ges­ture, even though he and Duke have had “sharp dis­agree­ments” in the past.

“Well, I was sur­prised. And I mean, I ap­pre­ci­ate the sup­port and the en­dorse­ment,” he said.

He added that po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences did not pre­vent col­lab­o­ra­tion when To­ba­go’s fu­ture was at stake.

“You know, we are say­ing that To­ba­go is we, and part of that means that from time to time that peo­ple dis­agree, per­haps on some prin­ci­ple mat­ters, but it does not mean that when it comes to To­ba­go, we can’t find grounds to agree and work to­geth­er, and it is just what it is.”

Au­gus­tine said he does not take any sup­port for grant­ed.

“And of course, I ap­pre­ci­ate all the sup­port I can get. I don’t take it for grant­ed. Any sup­port that I get from wher­ev­er, so I cer­tain­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it.”

He al­so sug­gest­ed that lead­er­ship re­quires ma­tu­ri­ty, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter win­ning a man­date from vot­ers.

“Well, you see, there’s some­thing I be­lieve in. You see, when you are vic­to­ri­ous, it is not the time to be pet­ty about some­thing,” he said.

Au­gus­tine said that the TPP won the two To­ba­go seats in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, even while Duke’s Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots was run­ning against the par­ty’s slate. He said it is a point that proves con­fi­dence in his own base.

“And notwith­stand­ing the fact that you won the last elec­tion, even with him present in the race, which is a demon­stra­tion that we can win with and with­out him, I felt it was a time to as­so­ciate (with) him,” he said.

The TPP leader added that dis­agree­ments be­tween him and Duke were nev­er per­ma­nent and that rec­on­cil­i­a­tion had been dis­cussed long be­fore the cur­rent elec­tion sea­son.

“Look, we have been at this. We have had some dis­agree­ments, and this con­ver­sa­tion had noth­ing to do with this elec­tion. Ac­tu­al­ly, it was some time back, and that’s why I was sur­prised to­day,” he said.

De­spite be­ing caught off guard by Duke’s pub­lic an­nounce­ment, Au­gus­tine said the broad­er ob­jec­tive is build­ing a stronger To­ba­go.

“But notwith­stand­ing, there must be a bet­ter way for us to get the kind of To­ba­go that we re­al­ly want, that all of us re­al­ly want, and it was just a mat­ter of be­ing gra­cious even in vic­to­ry,” he said.

While Au­gus­tine stopped short of out­lin­ing what Duke’s en­dorse­ment means op­er­a­tional­ly for the TPP’s cam­paign — or whether Duke will ap­pear on the TPP plat­form — he in­sist­ed he re­mains open to sup­port “from wher­ev­er.”

Au­gus­tine and Duke’s friend­ship and po­lit­i­cal re­la­tion­ship im­plod­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2022 dur­ing a row over fund­ing for a folk group who trav­elled to New York for a per­for­mance. Af­ter that, it went down­hill with Duke re­sign­ing as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary and re­mov­ing Au­gus­tine and two oth­ers as deputy lead­ers of the PDP. Au­gus­tine and sev­er­al oth­ers re­signed from the PDP, leav­ing Duke as the lone par­ty mem­ber in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Au­gus­tine and oth­ers lat­er formed the TPP.

Au­gus­tine has not yet in­di­cat­ed whether the TPP and PDP will co­op­er­ate for­mal­ly in the lead-up to the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tions.