Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is fram­ing Nom­i­na­tion Day as the open­ing sal­vo in what it calls a fight for To­ba­go’s fu­ture, as its 15 can­di­dates for­mal­ly en­tered the race across the is­land yes­ter­day.

Pro­ject­ing con­fi­dence in its slate while is­su­ing warn­ings about pos­si­ble job loss­es, par­ty of­fi­cials said the re­al bat­tle was on­ly just be­gin­ning.

Nom­i­na­tion Day ac­tiv­i­ties took place un­der over­cast skies with in­ter­mit­tent show­ers, as can­di­dates moved be­tween re­turn­ing of­fices to file their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers ahead of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion.

At the Buc­coo Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty, PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis said the par­ty re­mained fo­cused on the task ahead and would not be dis­tract­ed.

“We will con­tin­ue to con­duct our­selves with dis­ci­pline, or­der, pas­sion and dig­ni­ty—the kind the PNM is ac­cus­tomed to,” Den­nis said. “We are fo­cused on win­ning and on re­turn­ing to the THA.”

PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son was al­so present, ar­riv­ing as sup­port­ers gath­ered near the re­turn­ing of­fice, some shel­ter­ing from light rain.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on the nom­i­na­tion process and the par­ty’s readi­ness, Beck­les-Robin­son said the mood among can­di­dates and sup­port­ers was up­beat.

“You can see there’s a lot of ex­cite­ment,” she said. “We are very pos­i­tive, very en­er­gised, and we are look­ing for­ward to vic­to­ry.”

She not­ed that the par­ty’s can­di­dates had been se­lect­ed well ahead of Nom­i­na­tion Day.

“The screen­ing ex­er­cise was com­plet­ed at the end of June, which meant the can­di­dates would have been out on the field very ear­ly,” she said.

Beck­les-Robin­son al­so raised is­sues she said were af­fect­ing To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly em­ploy­ment and tourism. Re­fer­ring to con­cerns raised by busi­ness own­ers, she said some in the sec­tor were al­ready feel­ing the im­pact of pol­i­cy un­cer­tain­ty.

“We are hear­ing a lot from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in To­ba­go. They are very con­cerned. A num­ber of peo­ple have can­celled their reser­va­tions,” she said.

She added that the par­ty in­tend­ed to main­tain an or­der­ly cam­paign. “We will con­tin­ue to con­duct our­selves with dis­ci­pline and or­der,” she said.

Ear­li­er in the day, PNM can­di­date Kwe­si Des Vi­gnes, who is con­test­ing the Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah elec­toral dis­trict, warned about the fu­ture of state em­ploy­ment pro­grammes, mak­ing the com­ments im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter fil­ing his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

“This is not the To­ba­go that we all grew up lov­ing, and we need to re­store To­ba­go. We need to re­vive To­ba­go,” he said.

Des Vi­gnes claimed work­ers at­tached to pro­grammes such as the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), the Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship Eco­nom­ic Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and re­for­esta­tion had al­ready been af­fect­ed.

“We saw that URP, CEPEP, re­for­esta­tion—all of these work­ers— 20,000 work­ers were sent home in the first month of this new gov­ern­ment,” he said.

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern about fund­ing and pol­i­cy di­rec­tion, say­ing, “There is no par­lia­men­tary al­lo­ca­tion for URP or CEPEP in To­ba­go.”

Des Vi­gnes re­ferred to a 2012 court rul­ing in­volv­ing the THA and the re­for­esta­tion pro­gramme.

“The rul­ing by Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo then was that the THA is a pol­i­cy-tak­er, and if the re­for­esta­tion pro­gramme was closed in Trinidad, it had to be closed in To­ba­go,” he said.

He ar­gued that this could have im­pli­ca­tions for work­ers still em­ployed un­der those pro­grammes.

“If the pol­i­cy of the gov­ern­ment is to close CEPEP and URP, then ac­cord­ing to that rul­ing, we would al­so have to close URP and CEPEP in To­ba­go,” he said.

Asked whether he be­lieved the pro­grammes would be shut down af­ter the elec­tion, Des Vi­gnes replied, “It’s my gen­uine be­lief.”

Oth­er PNM can­di­dates, how­ev­er, lim­it­ed their com­ments to ex­pres­sions of con­fi­dence fol­low­ing the nom­i­na­tion process.

Dex­ter Miller, the PNM can­di­date for the Ma­son Hall South/Bagatelle elec­toral dis­trict, said the process went smooth­ly.

Asked about his chances, Miller said he was “very con­fi­dent,” adding, “It’s all about the peo­ple. It’s about the elec­toral dis­trict of Ma­son Hall South/Bagatelle, and at the end of the day, the peo­ple will make the right de­ci­sion by choos­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.”

With Nom­i­na­tion Day now com­plete, at­ten­tion turns to the cam­paign pe­ri­od in the weeks ahead, lead­ing up to the Jan­u­ary 12 elec­tion.