ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Se­nior Re­porter

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says To­bag­o­ni­ans will know the date of the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion “soon­er than you think”, but in­sists that a Christ­mas elec­tion is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly im­pos­si­ble.

Au­gus­tine, re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the me­dia in Trinidad yes­ter­day about when he in­tends to set the elec­tion date, said he has not yet made a de­ci­sion and has not ad­vised the Prime Min­is­ter or the Pres­i­dent.

“Well, I have not de­cid­ed on a date as yet, and I have not ad­vised the Prime Min­is­ter and Pres­i­dent of a date,” he said.

He ex­plained that the law gives a strict win­dow for the next elec­tion. “The law, how­ev­er, re­quires that the dates be be­tween the 12th of Jan­u­ary and the 12th of Feb­ru­ary. So that’s the win­dow that I have to work with. It’s based on Act 40 of 1996.”

On No­vem­ber 12, Au­gus­tine dis­solved the THA, which cleared the way for the elec­tion to be called. How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine did not re­veal the date and lat­er said he was pray­ing on it.

Yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine said the tim­ing of the elec­tion is tied to the re­cent dis­so­lu­tion of the THA Leg­is­la­ture. “Once the house is dis­solved, I have be­tween two to three months for which the Pres­i­dent, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Chief Sec­re­tary, will is­sue the elec­tion writ.” He said that the date is com­ing soon, say­ing, “So the date will come soon, soon­er than you think.”

Spec­u­la­tion about a De­cem­ber vote has been swirling for weeks, but Au­gus­tine dis­missed that en­tire­ly. “You can’t have an elec­tion be­fore Christ­mas be­cause, based on the Act, it can­not be less than two months af­ter the house was dis­solved,” he said.

He re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the dis­so­lu­tion date de­ter­mines the ear­li­est pos­si­ble poll. “The house was dis­solved on the 12 of No­vem­ber, so it can­not be be­fore Jan­u­ary 12 based on the law.”

Au­gus­tine al­so de­fend­ed his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s per­for­mance over the last four years. He said they en­tered of­fice with a clear man­date to re­pair sys­tems and sta­bilise To­ba­go. “Over the last four years, we came in on a mantra of, ‘let we fix this.’ And we dis­pensed a sig­nif­i­cant amount of re­sources, fix­ing things that were bro­ken and en­sur­ing that we keep the econ­o­my afloat, en­sur­ing that we kept peo­ple em­ployed.”

He list­ed sev­er­al in­vest­ments and achieve­ments dur­ing the term. “We have spent more on school re­pairs in the four-year pe­ri­od than any pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, spent more on gra­tu­ities and in­sur­ance than any oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion. We raised the salaries of URP, CEPEP work­ers long be­fore it was raised here in Trinidad.”

He al­so spoke of im­prove­ments in dis­as­ter plan­ning and emer­gency re­sponse. “Our plan­ning with re­gards to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and man-made dis­as­ters gave us the abil­i­ty to re­spond to things like a dis­as­trous oil spill and to re­spond in a time­ly man­ner.” He said, “So we have been quite a good gov­ern­ment, notwith­stand­ing that the push is even bet­ter and to do bet­ter than we did pre­vi­ous four years.”

Mean­while, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader, An­cil Den­nis, told Guardian Me­dia, “When­ev­er the elec­tion is called, the PNM stands ready. We have se­lect­ed all our can­di­dates, and we are ready to present the peo­ple of To­ba­go with an al­ter­na­tive.”

Au­gus­tine and the THA ex­ec­u­tive came in­to of­fice in De­cem­ber 2021 un­der the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots tick­et af­ter a land­slide at the poll. Au­gus­tine and oth­ers have since left the PDP and formed the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty, which he now leads.