Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

To­bag­o­ni­ans will go to the polls on Jan­u­ary 12, 2026.

Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced the date for the  To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion late last evening.

Speak­ing to sup­port­ers at D'Es­planade in Scar­bor­ough, Au­gus­tine said, "I have so ad­vised the Prime Min­is­ter and to­geth­er we will ad­vise the  Pres­i­dent. And the Pres­i­dent is ex­pect­ed to is­sue the elec­tion writ on or about De­cem­ber 5th this year. And so we are go­ing to the polls on Jan­u­ary 12th, 2026."

He added, "In this elec­tion, big crowd don't win elec­tion. Votes win elec­tion. We will walk from house to house. We will knock on every door. We will talk to every To­bag­on­ian and we will bring the votes out in large num­ber on Jan­u­ary the 12th, 2026."

But there was an­oth­er ma­jor an­nounce­ment aside from the elec­tion date.

Just mo­ments af­ter re­sign­ing as chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) To­ba­go West con­stituen­cy, Keigon De­noon was un­veiled as the TPP can­di­date for Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant.

Of the 15 can­di­dates, 13 were pre­vi­ous­ly re­vealed by Au­gus­tine on No­vem­ber 24. At last evening's ral­ly, the par­ty al­so re­vealed Ian Pol­lard will re­turn to de­fend his Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah seat.

Au­gus­tine left De­noon for last.

“This par­ty, this po­lit­i­cal par­ty prides it­self in al­ways be­ing a coali­tion of the com­pe­tent and the will­ing. We have in our par­ty peo­ple who are TOP, peo­ple who are NAR, peo­ple who are To­ba­go For­wards, peo­ple who are UNC, peo­ple who are PNM, and we are all To­bag­o­ni­ans fight­ing for a bet­ter To­ba­go and fight­ing to en­sure that we build the great­est lit­tle is­land on the plan­et. And so, our fi­nal can­di­date is a gen­tle­man who some hours ago was the chair­man of PNM To­ba­go West,” Au­gus­tine de­clared.

The TPP leader added, “And a few hours lat­er, he de­cid­ed that enough is enough.”

In an­nounc­ing De­noon's de­par­ture from the par­ty on Face­book hours ear­li­er, the PNM’s An­cil Den­nis said he re­spect­ed De­noon’s choice and thanked him for his ser­vice.

“I urge all PNM mem­bers and sup­port­ers to re­spond with grace and keep their eyes on the re­al goal, restor­ing sta­bil­i­ty, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and de­cen­cy to To­ba­go. Let us re­main fo­cused and stay the course,” he wrote.

Mean­while, Au­gus­tine an­nounced that he is of the firm view that the Chief Sec­re­tary should have a seat on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“That's where the con­ver­sa­tion should go and that is a mat­ter for the cab­i­net to ad­dress. That's not even a mat­ter of law. That's a Cab­i­net pol­i­cy to be ad­dressed. Fur­ther­more, I be­lieve that for any na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions is­sue for which To­ba­go is a di­rect part of the arrange­ment, we should know. We should be a part of it.”

How­ev­er, he said that is a con­ver­sa­tion to be had and he is pleased with the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“At least I know I could pick up the phone and I could call Kam­la. I don't know if I could have picked up the phone and called (Kei­th) Row­ley and asked him what they're build­ing down by the air­port. Be­cause when they came to open the un­fin­ished air­port, I couldn't even take a tour with him in the air­port. They want­ed me to sit down and wait un­til he take a tour and then I take a tour.”

The TPP can­di­dates are:

Far­ley Au­gus­tine (Par­latu­vi­er/L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side) Dar­ren Hes­tor Hen­ry (Bethel/New Grange)

Dr Faith Breb­nor (Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan)

Zor­isha Ame­na Hack­ett (Bethes­da/Les Coteaux)

Megan Ce­ci­ly Mor­ri­son (Mt St George/Good­wood)

Trevor Williamson James (Scar­bor­ough/Mt Grace)

Wane Ma­conie “Wasp” Clarke (Lam­beau/Low­lands) Nike­ta Per­cy (Bon Ac­cord/Crown Point)

Nigel Dave Taitt (Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill)

Nathisha Charles-Pan­tin (Bagatelle/Ba­co­let)

Kern Alex­is (Ply­mouth/Black Rock)

Or­lan­do Kerr (Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle)

Ricky Michael Joe­field (Dar­rel Spring/Whim)

Keigon De­noon (Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant)