When To­bag­o­ni­ans go to the polls on Jan­u­ary 12, 2026, they will be do­ing far more than choos­ing a To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA). With Nom­i­na­tion Day now com­plet­ed, cam­paign­ing on the is­land is swing­ing in­to high gear, and with less than a month to go to the polls, the con­test has en­tered its most in­tense phase.

This elec­tion will test po­lit­i­cal mem­o­ry, sig­nal na­tion­al cur­rents, and help shape the bal­ance of pow­er in T&T at a mo­ment of tran­si­tion, with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) un­der Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar back in gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) en­ters this race with his­to­ry firm­ly against it. The par­ty is still scarred by its cat­a­stroph­ic 14–1 de­feat in De­cem­ber 2021 — the worst loss it has ever suf­fered in a THA elec­tion — which end­ed 21 con­sec­u­tive years of PNM con­trol of To­ba­go’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

That rout fol­lowed an un­prece­dent­ed 6–6 tie ear­li­er in 2021, a con­sti­tu­tion­al stale­mate so se­vere it forced Par­lia­ment to amend the law and in­crease the num­ber of as­sem­bly seats from 12 to 15 to avoid fu­ture dead­lock. When snap elec­tions were fi­nal­ly held, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), then led by Far­ley Au­gus­tine, swept the board.

That re­sult was part of a To­ba­go tra­di­tion of po­lit­i­cal shock­waves as the elec­torate on the sis­ter is­land has re­peat­ed­ly shown a will­ing­ness to up­end po­lit­i­cal as­sump­tions.

How­ev­er, since 2021, the is­land’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape has un­der­gone sig­nif­i­cant changes. The PDP frac­tured, with Au­gus­tine and the bulk of its elect­ed mem­bers form­ing the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP). Wat­son Duke’s PDP has now thrown its sup­port be­hind the TPP, con­sol­i­dat­ing much of the an­ti-PNM vote be­hind Au­gus­tine.

As cam­paign­ing in­ten­si­fies, the TPP has framed the elec­tion around two is­sues: ad­vanc­ing To­ba­go’s long-run­ning quest for greater au­ton­o­my and en­sur­ing the is­land is in­clud­ed in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

The re­cent in­stal­la­tion of a mil­i­tary radar in To­ba­go has be­come a flash­point. The PNM has ac­cused the TPP of putting To­bag­o­ni­ans at risk and has vowed to re­move the radar if re­turned to of­fice.

Over the next few weeks, vot­ers will have to weigh fear against as­pi­ra­tion, and rhetoric against record, as par­ties make their fi­nal push.

While the THA elec­tion does not de­ter­mine who gov­erns na­tion­al­ly, its out­come will still re­ver­ber­ate na­tion­wide. With the UNC hold­ing 26 of the 41 par­lia­men­tary seats, Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­joys a work­ing ma­jor­i­ty, but na­tion­al pol­i­tics re­main com­pet­i­tive. A de­ci­sive TPP vic­to­ry would re­in­force To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ty out­side the tra­di­tion­al PNM–UNC bi­na­ry, strength­en­ing Au­gus­tine’s hand in ne­go­ti­a­tions over fund­ing, de­vel­op­ment and au­ton­o­my, while of­fer­ing the UNC an op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­creased col­lab­o­ra­tion with­out ap­pear­ing Trinidad-cen­tric.

Con­verse­ly, a PNM resur­gence in To­ba­go would give the na­tion­al op­po­si­tion a much-need­ed morale boost and a nar­ra­tive of re­cov­ery af­ter years of set­backs.

A co­op­er­a­tive THA could smooth co­or­di­na­tion on tourism, in­fra­struc­ture and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment; a hos­tile one could slow projects and deep­en po­lit­i­cal fric­tion. And with To­ba­go’s two par­lia­men­tary seats hav­ing tipped the bal­ance in close na­tion­al con­tests be­fore, the longer-term im­pli­ca­tions should not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed.

With cam­paign­ing now in full swing, Jan­u­ary 12, 2026, is about whether To­ba­go con­tin­ues to chart an in­de­pen­dent po­lit­i­cal course, how the na­tion­al gov­ern­ment en­gages the is­land and what sig­nals are sent about the fu­ture di­rec­tion of pol­i­tics in T&T.