Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) says To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine owes his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer to its leader, Wat­son Duke, who gave him his start when Au­gus­tine was “a lit­tle dry foot boy from Spey­side.”

Au­gus­tine re­cent­ly dis­missed Duke as a po­lit­i­cal force on the is­land, claim­ing he “can­not at­tract even one per cent” of To­ba­go’s sup­port—a claim the PDP strong­ly re­ject­ed.

On crit­i­cism from Duke, who ac­cused him of be­tray­ing the PDP fol­low­ing a fall­out in 2022, Au­gus­tine was blunt.

“I don’t know that one has a view on Mr Duke at all, so we don’t give much con­sid­er­a­tion to Mr Duke,” he said.

“Mr Duke could bare­ly at­tract one per cent of the sup­port of To­bag­o­ni­ans … I wish him all the best as he gets buried po­lit­i­cal­ly … I’m not re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in Mr Duke and his com­ments.”

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, PDP chair­man Sean Nedd called Au­gus­tine’s re­marks “dis­re­spect­ful and delu­sion­al,” and de­scribed them as “an open be­tray­al of the very man who gave Far­ley Au­gus­tine his po­lit­i­cal start and de­fend­ed him against all odds.”

The PDP men­tioned Duke’s nine years as a mem­ber of the THA, de­scrib­ing him as “the most con­sis­tent, fear­less, and vi­sion­ary voice,” with “a record of de­fend­ing To­ba­go’s peo­ple and in­ter­ests [that] is un­matched.”

The par­ty said it was Duke who gave Au­gus­tine his po­lit­i­cal plat­form un­der the PDP ban­ner in 2017 and car­ried the par­ty “on his shoul­ders” to his­toric elec­tion vic­to­ries in Jan­u­ary 2017, the Jan­u­ary 2021 dead­lock, and then De­cem­ber 2021.

The re­lease fur­ther stat­ed that Duke “proud­ly served as an as­sem­bly­man for the past nine years,” and that his lead­er­ship “re­mains un­matched in de­fend­ing To­ba­go’s peo­ple and in­ter­ests.” The PDP said Au­gus­tine’s com­ments “are not just dis­re­spect­ful—they are an open be­tray­al” of Duke’s sup­port.

The PDP warned Au­gus­tine would soon face “the re­al­i­ty of a To­ba­go that has grown dis­il­lu­sioned, dis­sat­is­fied, and ready for change.”

It added, “His­to­ry will re­mem­ber who stood firm for the peo­ple and who turned their back when pow­er came.”

The feud be­tween Duke and Au­gus­tine in­ten­si­fied less than a year in­to Au­gus­tine’s tenure as Chief Sec­re­tary, trig­ger­ing a mass res­ig­na­tion with­in the PDP. Au­gus­tine sub­se­quent­ly formed his To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty in 2023. The par­ty went on to win the To­ba­go East and West seats in the re­cent April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. 

Mean­while, both Duke and Au­gus­tine have said their par­ties are gear­ing up to take on each oth­er in the up­com­ing THA elec­tion.

The elec­tion date has not yet been called, but the TPP’s term ex­pires af­ter De­cem­ber 6.