Gail Alexan­der

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP) min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin has con­firmed she’s cam­paign­ing for Wat­son Duke’s Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (PDP) and her col­league for­mer PP min­is­ter Dr Del­mon Bak­er says he hopes the pop­u­la­tion will make a change from the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

Last week­end in To­ba­go, PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley claimed the UNC - which formed the PP coali­tion Gov­ern­ment in 2010 - was back­ing the PDP and that Al­leyne-Top­pin and Bak­er had at­tend­ed a PDP func­tion re­cent­ly.

Bak­er was the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple’s (TOP) To­ba­go West MP and a PP Tourism Min­is­ter.

He was ex­pelled from the TOP in 2015.

On Tues­day he told Guardian Me­dia he’s re­tired from pol­i­tics and hadn’t at­tend­ed a Rox­bor­ough func­tion that Dr Row­ley may have re­ferred to.

But Bak­er said To­ba­go hasn’t made it to the re­quired ca­pac­i­ty in the last five years and Row­ley hadn’t shown that he’s prop­er­ly han­dled the last five years of T&T’s neg­a­tive eco­nom­ic con­di­tions.

“I pray the pop­u­la­tion makes a change,” Bak­er added.

For­mer To­ba­go East MP Al­leyne-Top­pin, how­ev­er, con­firmed she’d at­tend­ed the Rox­bor­ough “dri­ve-in” launch of PDP re­cent­ly and oth­er launch­es of the par­ty in Scar­bor­ough and Spey­side.

“I’m a cit­i­zen of T&T. Free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion is my con­sti­tu­tion­al right,” he said on Tues­day dur­ing a mo­tor­cade to Ply­mouth.

“I’m part of the To­ba­go move­ment to en­sure To­ba­go gets its place and re­sources. Yes, I’ve joined PDP be­cause I’m giv­ing back sup­port where I was sup­port­ed be­fore.”

“When I was To­ba­go East MP, Wat­son sup­port­ed me and I’m grate­ful to the peo­ple of the area for sup­port­ing me along the way. I’ll sup­port any move to help make their lives bet­ter. It’s the same peo­ple who sup­port­ed me, ask­ing for the same thing, some of which I de­liv­ered. I al­so sup­port PDP’s To­ba­go West can­di­date. I ful­ly ex­pect PDP will have a land­slide vic­to­ry,’’ she said.

On whether Al­leyne-Top­pin would en­cour­age a suc­cess­ful PDP hold­ing the bal­ance of pow­er to sup­port the UNC to­wards form­ing Gov­ern­ment (or PNM) she said she lis­tens to the PDP which has said they’d re­main in­de­pen­dent.

“I’ll sup­port what­ev­er they’re will­ing to do,” she said.

“Wat­son has said re­peat­ed­ly they’re not join­ing any­one...(but) if it comes to ne­go­ti­a­tions, they’ll strike a hard bar­gain, I don’t know which way. I’m just show­ing my sup­port to help To­bag­o­ni­ans get the strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion they need and form the change that must come in con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments for the (To­ba­go) House of As­sem­bly and cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.”

Al­leyne-Top­pin said the PP Gov­ern­ment had pre­sent­ed a bill for To­ba­go au­ton­o­my, but she claimed the PNM “walked out”.

Former People’s Partnership minister Dr Delmon Baker.

She said she’s sup­port­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form pro­pos­als for To­ba­go that would be prac­ti­cal and ef­fec­tive to strength­en the T&T union. She added that she was open to the PP’s pro­pos­als or even what is cur­rent­ly be­fore the Par­lia­ment.

“But it mustn’t be that Trinidad is colonis­ing To­ba­go. Wat­son has for­mu­lat­ed a po­si­tion seek­ing wider pow­ers and it looks like a fed­er­al arrange­ment like in the US,” she said.

She said on­ly 60,000 To­bag­o­ni­ans live in To­ba­go and 300,000 of them live in Trinidad to be clos­er to re­sources, in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion.

“There’s a brain drain. We’re strug­gling with things like that,” she said.

Al­leyne-Top­pin said she was still await­ing her pen­sion and gra­tu­ity as an MP and al­so her teacher’s pen­sion and pub­lic ser­vice pen­sion.

“I’ve trav­elled to Trinidad a mil­lion times, been to Pres­i­dent’s House and I’ve been fight­ing for this a long time. It’s very un­fair and dis­re­spect­ful you have to leave To­ba­go and come to Trinidad so much to fight for what’s due to you.’’

Mean­while, In­de­pen­dent To­ba­go West can­di­date Ri­car­do Phillip says he was in­volved with the UNC un­der the Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion but is no longer with the UNC. Phillips is among those con­test­ing To­ba­go West, cur­rent­ly held by PNM’s Sham­fa Cud­joe.

Phillips said he was in­volved with the UNC 20 years ago but hasn’t been since and isn’t a UNC mem­ber.

It’s the first time he’s seek­ing a con­stituen­cy in gen­er­al elec­tions but had con­test­ed 2013 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly polls.

“My in­ter­ven­tion is to bring fresh ideas and new vi­sion as we’re go­ing down the wrong path in this seat. There are long­stand­ing is­sues that weren’t dealt with for be­yond five years.”

On the in­ter­est in To­ba­go in how par­ties and In­de­pen­dents may pro­ceed in the event a To­ba­go group holds the bal­ance of pow­er in the out­come, Phillip said he’d have to have an ide­o­log­i­cal or philo­soph­i­cal bal­ance be­fore an arrange­ment can be made.

“The sit­u­a­tion on both sides must mesh. So it’s not just about beat­ing PNM.”

An­oth­er To­ba­go West In­de­pen­dent, Nick­o­cy Phillips is an Am­bas­sador with the “Youth Will Rise” en­ti­ty which fo­cus­es on sin­gle moth­ers and fa­thers, at-risk youth and sim­i­lar groups.

Phillips at­tend­ed a Unit­ed Na­tions con­fer­ence last year on that is­sue and oth­er fo­rums.

Phillips said,“ I see the need to im­prove the sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing women’s rights, gen­der equal­i­ty, men’s rights and the risk to youth. On the whole, in To­ba­go, I feel a lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. We can build big build­ings but still, we have job­less­ness, so­cial prob­lems and abuse of women and chil­dren. Phillips wants to be an in­de­pen­dent voice in Par­lia­ment to work with Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion on is­sues.