Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Two of To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal par­ties say they are ac­tive­ly prepar­ing for the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, as the is­land’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape con­tin­ues to shift fol­low­ing the his­toric 2021 out­come and its af­ter­math.

Al­though Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke was guard­ed when con­tact­ed for com­ment on his par­ty’s prepa­ra­tions, when re­mind­ed that the PDP won the last THA elec­tions, Duke replied, “Ex­act­ly,” and agreed that the same blue­print that led to the par­ty’s sweep­ing 14-1 vic­to­ry against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in De­cem­ber 2021 could work again.

He con­firmed that the PDP planned to is­sue an of­fi­cial writ­ten state­ment on its elec­tion plans soon. The PDP’s land­slide win in 2021 end­ed the PNM’s two-decade hold on the THA. But in­ter­nal con­flict quick­ly fol­lowed. In 2022, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and 12 oth­er PDP as­sem­bly mem­bers re­signed from the par­ty, fol­low­ing lead­er­ship is­sues and a pub­lic spat be­tween Duke and Au­gus­tine over spon­sor­ship for a cul­tur­al group. They con­tin­ued to run the THA as in­de­pen­dents and lat­er formed the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), ef­fec­tive­ly leav­ing Duke with­out a team, a di­vi­sion or ac­tive pres­ence in the THA ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil.

Since then, Duke has main­tained pub­lic vis­i­bil­i­ty, but the PDP has not held for­mal pow­er with­in the THA de­spite Duke’s at­tempts to rec­on­cile. The PDP al­so failed to se­cure ei­ther of the two To­ba­go seats in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Mean­while, the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA), led by Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, has al­so con­firmed it is ac­tive­ly prepar­ing for the polls.

“The IDA has nev­er stopped plan­ning since the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions in 2021,” Tsoiafatt-An­gus told Guardian Me­dia.

“Dur­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form meet­ings and al­so dur­ing the na­tion­al elec­tions, we used every mo­ment to lis­ten to the peo­ple’s con­cerns and their pri­or­i­ties. These are the voic­es that are shap­ing and guid­ing our fi­nal blue­print for To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus added that for the past six months, IDA’s po­ten­tial can­di­dates have been work­ing to­geth­er in com­mu­ni­ties and un­der­tak­ing var­i­ous projects across the is­land. The par­ty ex­pects to an­nounce its fi­nal slate soon.

“The IDA con­tin­ues to re­main fo­cused, com­mit­ted to ser­vice and ground­ed in the will of the peo­ple,” she said.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus, a for­mer PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil as­sem­bly­man and one-time THA pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, formed the IDA short­ly af­ter leav­ing the PNM.

She formed the par­ty be­fore the last THA elec­tion, where it con­test­ed but failed to se­cure a seat.

While both the PDP and IDA are still in prepa­ra­tion mode, the PNM has al­ready com­plet­ed its screen­ing process and con­firmed that it has se­lect­ed 15 can­di­dates to con­test every elec­toral dis­trict.

The screen­ing ex­er­cise, which be­gan in June, in­volved 35 nom­i­nees and was com­plet­ed by the end of Ju­ly. The PNM has now moved in­to pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion for its man­i­festo. This is ex­pect­ed to start this week­end. The next THA’s term ex­pires on De­cem­ber 6, and so the as­sem­bly has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 90 days to call the elec­tions.

Al­though no of­fi­cial date has been an­nounced, Au­gus­tine, af­ter his par­ty vic­to­ry in the re­cent Gen­er­al Elec­tion, put his as­sem­bly­men on no­tice, ask­ing them to “come out of those Pra­dos and For­tuners” and to re­turn to the peo­ple. At that time, Au­gus­tine said he had no date in mind.