Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

As To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal tem­per­a­ture ris­es ahead of the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion, small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties are qui­et­ly but steadi­ly ramp­ing up prepa­ra­tions, each aim­ing to of­fer an al­ter­na­tive to the is­land’s tra­di­tion­al po­lit­i­cal gi­ants.

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus says this elec­tion would be very dif­fer­ent from the April 29 gen­er­al elec­tion, when her par­ty’s fo­cus was main­ly to “get its feet wet.” She said the IDA en­tered that race to sig­nal its pres­ence and re­con­nect with vot­ers rather than to win, ex­plain­ing that at the time, the po­lit­i­cal mood was sim­ply about “get­ting rid of the PNM" and "ten per cent wage in­crease."

“This elec­tion is dif­fer­ent,” she said.

“For the last ten years, we’ve had eco­nom­ic de­cline, and in the last four years, we’ve seen a fur­ther sig­nif­i­cant drop in To­ba­go’s econ­o­my. Peo­ple are feel­ing it when they go to the gro­cery, or send their chil­dren to school.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said the IDA’s cam­paign will fo­cus on turn­ing around To­ba­go’s econ­o­my so fam­i­lies can feel re­al change in their dai­ly lives. The par­ty has al­ready start­ed screen­ing can­di­dates, with the of­fi­cial process ex­pect­ed to ramp up by the end of No­vem­ber.

Mean­while, an­oth­er small par­ty, Uni­ty of the Peo­ple, is al­so prepar­ing to con­test all 16 THA seats for the first time. Po­lit­i­cal leader Nick­o­cy Phillips told Guardian Me­dia that the par­ty has com­plet­ed its 2025–2026 man­i­festo and opened nom­i­na­tions for can­di­dates across the is­land.

He said the par­ty hasn't re­ceived nom­i­nees yet.

Phillips said nom­i­na­tions re­main open, and sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als have al­ready ex­pressed in­ter­est in rep­re­sent­ing the par­ty in var­i­ous dis­tricts. “Once the bell has rung, we will be ready and we’ll put our best foot for­ward,” he said.

He added that Uni­ty of the Peo­ple plans to main­tain “deco­rum and in­tegri­ty in pol­i­tics,” fo­cus­ing on the is­sues rather than neg­a­tive rhetoric.

Both lead­ers say To­bag­o­ni­ans are ready to move away from di­vi­sive na­tion­al pol­i­tics and to­ward To­ba­go po­lit­i­cal move­ments that put the is­land’s in­ter­ests first.

The term of the THA ex­pires on De­cem­ber 10.