Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has been dis­solved fol­low­ing a for­mal re­quest from Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine dur­ing a ple­nary sit­ting last evening. This paves the way for THA elec­tion to be held, al­though no date has yet been an­nounced.

Speak­ing dur­ing the sit­ting, Au­gus­tine said his ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice amid the un­cer­tain­ty of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and leaves be­hind a record of re­silience.

The dis­so­lu­tion comes just weeks be­fore the cur­rent term was due to end on De­cem­ber 6. Un­der the law, an elec­tion must now be called with­in 90 days.

With the As­sem­bly dis­solved, the Chief Sec­re­tary and Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil will con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing in a lim­it­ed, care­tak­er ca­pac­i­ty un­til a date for the poll is an­nounced.

In the De­cem­ber 2021 THA elec­tion, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP)—which had de­clared Au­gus­tine as its can­di­date for Chief Sec­re­tary—won a ma­jor­i­ty, de­feat­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) by a land­slide. Au­gus­tine and sev­er­al THA sec­re­taries and As­sem­bly mem­bers have since left the PDP, led by Wat­son Duke, and formed the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP).

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties on the is­land are ex­pect­ed to in­ten­si­fy their prepa­ra­tions as To­bag­o­ni­ans await the is­su­ing of the elec­tion writ. The PNM has al­ready se­lect­ed and named its 15 can­di­dates, while the TPP is in the process of do­ing the same. Oth­er small­er par­ties are al­so gear­ing up to con­test dis­tricts.

Dur­ing a cot­tage meet­ing at the Hope Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Tues­day night, PNM can­di­date Den­nis said a new PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion will fo­cus on ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and restor­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in pol­i­tics. He added that his team will re­build trust in To­ba­go by en­sur­ing no res­i­dent is ever turned away by their area rep­re­sen­ta­tive.