Po­lit­i­cal An­a­lyst Anslem Richards says race-bait­ing was a tac­tic used in the 2013 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions and he be­lieves the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment(PNM) is us­ing it again to un­seat Wat­son Duke in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

Richards was com­ment­ing on posters bear­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sym­bols and pho­tos of UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Duke. The leaflets were stuck to util­i­ty poles in Scar­bor­ough, Ply­mouth and Rox­bor­ough.

The PDP and UNC have de­nied any knowl­edge of the posters.

“In 2013, when the Cal­cut­ta ship state­ment was made by Hilton Sandy on the PNM plat­form, it in­cit­ed fear of an­oth­er race in To­ba­go’s pol­i­tics. This is sim­ply race-bait­ing. Putting up the posters is to reawak­en and in­stil that fear in the minds of To­bag­o­ni­ans. How­ev­er, the same kind of tac­tic is not used in Trinidad,” Richards said.

In 2013, when Sandy ad­dressed sup­port­ers on the hus­tings in Rox­bor­ough, he warned about a “Cal­cut­ta ship ... wait­ing to sail to To­ba­go.”

He said the on­ly way to stop it was to vote for the PNM.

“We must not al­low that ship to sail and if you don’t want that ship to sail, what you have to do, is vote the PNM,” he said then.

The PNM won all 12 seats in the THA elec­tions.

The UNC was in gov­er­nance in Trinidad.

Four years lat­er, in 2017, Duke, the PDP’s leader, wrest the much-sought-af­ter elec­toral dis­trict of Belle Gar­den East/Rox­bor­ough/De­laford away from PNM’s Gary Melville.

Fast for­ward to 2021 and the seat is again a hot­ly con­test­ed one.

Duke, who just re­tained the post of Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, in­di­cat­ed he is not in­ter­est­ed in be­com­ing Chief Sec­re­tary if the par­ty wins the THA elec­tions. In­stead, one of the par­ty’s deputies, Far­ley Au­gus­tine will take the po­si­tion.

Ear­li­er this month, dur­ing the PNM’s walk­a­bout in the area, the par­ty’s To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine un­der­scored the im­por­tance of win­ning the seat.

“Mak­ing it hap­pen de­pends on the col­lec­tive ef­fort of all of us and the peo­ple of Rox­bor­ough,” she stressed.

And just over two weeks ago, the PNM’s na­tion­al leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley made a sim­i­lar state­ment.

“A lot of you peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly pub­lic ser­vants in To­ba­go who have a job and be­lieve this is not your busi­ness and you se­cure. You go and put some­body in of­fice who vex with every­body else and put God out your thoughts and put him in of­fice,” the PM said.

Rox­bor­ough is To­ba­go’s sec­ond town.

With­in the last four years, the vil­lage has de­vel­oped. It now has an ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex, fire and po­lice sta­tions, along with a hos­pi­tal - most of these were re­cent­ly com­mis­sioned.

Come Mon­day, Duke will fight the PNM’s new­com­er Neil Beck­les. Beck­les, like Duke, hails from the area.

Ac­cord­ing to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion in 2017,

58 per cent of the elec­torate vot­ed for the PDP and To­ba­go For­wards com­bined, while 42 per cent vot­ed for the PNM.

Sta­tis­tics showed 60 per cent of the elec­torate vot­ed.

This time around there is an in­crease of 116 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers on the EBC’s list as the to­tal num­ber of elec­torates moved from 3,741 in 2017 to 3,857 in 2020.