With the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty (TPP) de­mol­ish­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) long­stand­ing hold on To­ba­go in Mon­day's elec­tion, its Po­lit­i­cal Leader, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, says the par­ty's two seats in Par­lia­ment will now con­tribute to the two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty re­quired to amend the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), grant­i­ng greater priv­i­leges to is­land's ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The TPP's Joel Samp­son de­feat­ed for­mer To­ba­go West MP Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, while David Thomas over­came for­mer To­ba­go East MP Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

In a tri­umphant speech on Mon­day night, Au­gus­tine, al­so the THA Chief Sec­re­tary, said win­ning both seats was sig­nif­i­cant. He said with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) se­cur­ing 26 seats, the TPP’s two would bring the tal­ly to 28—the ex­act num­ber need­ed to pass cer­tain leg­is­la­tion.

"While that two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty is not quite the lev­el we need for some con­sti­tu­tion­al changes, it is suf­fi­cient to ex­pand Act 40 of 1996. We will now be able to af­ford the peo­ple of To­ba­go greater priv­i­leges with­in this democ­ra­cy," Au­gus­tine said.

He re­flect­ed on the past four years, claim­ing To­ba­go en­dured ne­glect and dis­re­spect from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. Mon­day’s vote, he de­clared, was To­ba­go's re­sponse.

"We made a call for 60,000 strong to stand up, and you stood up with vengeance. We thank you for that. This is al­so a re­minder that To­bag­o­ni­ans are, in fact, in­tel­li­gent be­ings—and we will not be re­duced to crabs or an­i­mals."

Au­gus­tine de­liv­ered his mes­sage amid cheers and the blare of horns, quot­ing scrip­tures and thank­ing God, par­ty of­fi­cials, and sup­port­ers. He al­so took a swipe at the PNM’s To­ba­go lead­er­ship.

"Thank you to the PNM for keep­ing a los­er as your po­lit­i­cal leader in To­ba­go—and please keep him un­til the next THA elec­tion."

He urged sup­port­ers to ral­ly around Samp­son and Thomas as they as­sume their par­lia­men­tary roles. Not­ing a low­er vot­er turnout com­pared to pre­vi­ous elec­tions, Au­gus­tine said in­tro­spec­tion was nec­es­sary, and pledged that his ad­min­is­tra­tion will align it­self more close­ly with the peo­ple's ex­pec­ta­tions. He of­fered apolo­gies for any short­com­ings over the past three years.

Bid­ding farewell to for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his short-term suc­ces­sor Stu­art Young, Au­gus­tine con­grat­u­lat­ed Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her sec­ond gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry. He called for na­tion­al uni­ty.

Mean­while, PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis vowed that the par­ty would as­sess its per­for­mance and re­group for the THA elec­tions, due lat­er this year.

At a press con­fer­ence flanked by To­ba­go Coun­cil chair­man Learie Paul and THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris, Den­nis said he did not be­lieve the PNM had let down its base. He ex­pressed pride in the par­ty’s lega­cy on the is­land.

Den­nis said it was too ear­ly to de­ter­mine the cause of de­feat, but point­ed out that the UNC had promised a 10 per cent wage in­crease and salary boosts for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. He al­so ob­served that the TPP, which he re­ferred to as the UNC's To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive, ran on a plat­form of ne­go­ti­at­ing on To­ba­go’s be­half.

"It’s easy to make promis­es in op­po­si­tion. We’ve con­sis­tent­ly said the coun­try can­not af­ford cer­tain things." He said af­ter 10 years in gov­ern­ment, it’s dif­fi­cult to main­tain "na­tion­al ap­peal."

He thanked Cud­joe-Lewis and Web­ster-Roy for their ser­vice, say­ing they had been out­stand­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives for To­ba­go. He al­so praised for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, not­ing his decade of lead­er­ship, and ac­knowl­edged Stu­art Young for what he called his brief but ef­fec­tive tenure.

In a Face­book post, Web­ster-Roy ex­pressed grat­i­tude to her con­stituents.

"While the re­sults weren’t in our favour, I am deeply grate­ful for your sup­port, your trust, and the many mem­o­ries we’ve shared over the years. To my team and every sup­port­er—thank you for stand­ing by me, for be­liev­ing in our mis­sion, and for giv­ing your all," Web­ster-Roy said.