Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil has closed nom­i­na­tions in eight elec­toral dis­tricts, with 21 in­di­vid­u­als fil­ing to con­test the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions un­der the par­ty’s ban­ner.

In a re­lease is­sued this morn­ing, the par­ty said these as­pi­rants will now ad­vance to the next stage of its in­ter­nal process. First, their re­spec­tive dis­trict par­ty groups will re­view them, af­ter which the PNM Screen­ing Com­mit­tee will se­lect the fi­nal slate of can­di­dates.

Nom­i­na­tions re­main open in sev­en oth­er dis­tricts un­til Wednes­day, 11 June. These are Bagatelle/Ba­co­let, Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan, Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah, Mt. St. George/Good­wood, Par­latu­vi­er/L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side, Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle, and Scar­bor­ough/Mt. Grace.

The par­ty says it is com­mit­ted to an open and fair se­lec­tion process. It is en­cour­ag­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans who are pas­sion­ate about pub­lic ser­vice and com­mu­ni­ty lead­er­ship to of­fer them­selves for con­sid­er­a­tion.

This de­vel­op­ment comes as the is­land pre­pares for its next THA elec­tion, which is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due in De­cem­ber 2025.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has al­ready said no ear­ly elec­tion will be called un­less his team agrees to it.

The last THA elec­tion in 2021 end­ed in a 14–1 vic­to­ry for the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), which Au­gus­tine left to form the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty.