Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Al­most four years af­ter end­ing the PNM’s 21-year reign in To­ba­go, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke says his par­ty has been qui­et­ly screen­ing can­di­dates for some time and is “more than ready” for the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion.

The THA’s term will ex­pire in ap­prox­i­mate­ly two months, trig­ger­ing an­oth­er elec­tion which is ex­pect­ed to hap­pen with­in 90 days of its ex­pi­ra­tion.

Duke spoke short­ly af­ter the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), which broke away from his PDP, an­nounced the open­ing of nom­i­na­tions for all 15 elec­toral dis­tricts over the week­end.

Asked where the PDP is in its own prepa­ra­tions, Duke said, “We have been screen­ing for quite a long time, right? And the process con­tin­ues ba­si­cal­ly for us. We have been screen­ing for a while and the process con­tin­ues for us. We have nev­er stopped screen­ing peo­ple. So we are al­so con­duct­ing our screen­ings.”

Duke ex­plained that the PDP’s screen­ing takes place di­rect­ly in com­mu­ni­ties. He said mem­bers iden­ti­fy and rec­om­mend peo­ple they be­lieve are best suit­ed to rep­re­sent them—a method he said worked well in the 2021 THA elec­tion when he se­lect­ed Far­ley Au­gus­tine and oth­er mem­bers who went on to form the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“We are just not so open with it as to say we are in­ter­est­ed. We don’t do that. We go in­to the com­mu­ni­ties, we ask peo­ple, and we have our own unique way of get­ting the best per­sons or the best per­son for the job with­in the com­mu­ni­ty,” Duke said.

He added, “We have been screen­ing a lot. I don’t want to say too much.”

Pressed on whether the par­ty is pre­pared for the polls, Duke replied, “We are more than ready. We have been ready for years now. So when­ev­er they bring it, be ready.”

His com­ments come as the TPP an­nounced the start of its nom­i­na­tion process. The TPP says nom­i­na­tions for all fif­teen seats in the up­com­ing THA elec­tion must be sub­mit­ted elec­tron­i­cal­ly be­tween Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 5, and Oc­to­ber 17.

In a re­lease, the TPP said the process is “open to all qual­i­fied To­bag­o­ni­ans who are com­mit­ted to the prin­ci­ples and vi­sion of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty.” It al­so en­cour­aged mem­bers of the pub­lic who are pas­sion­ate about serv­ing their com­mu­ni­ties to step for­ward and par­tic­i­pate.

Duke’s par­ty end­ed the PNM’s 21-year reign af­ter cap­tur­ing 14 of 15 seats in the 2021 THA elec­tion. How­ev­er, he lat­er lost all mem­bers of his par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive af­ter win­ning the polls. The for­mer mem­bers, in­clud­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, re­signed from the PDP and went on to es­tab­lish the TPP months lat­er.

In Au­gust, the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil an­nounced it had com­plet­ed its screen­ing process and se­lect­ed 15 can­di­dates to con­test the up­com­ing THA elec­tion. The process be­gan in June and in­volved 35 in­di­vid­u­als of­fer­ing them­selves for ser­vice across the is­land’s 15 dis­tricts.

In a Ju­ly 31 re­lease, the PNM de­scribed the ex­er­cise as a “rig­or­ous and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry process,” adding that the fi­nal slate rep­re­sent­ed a mix of youth and ex­pe­ri­ence. The par­ty said it is ready to serve To­ba­go again and pre­pared to “an­swer the call of the peo­ple when­ev­er re­quired.”

It al­so promised to re­lease the iden­ti­ty of its can­di­dates when the time is right.