SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

As news of the re­sound­ing vic­to­ry of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion spread across To­ba­go on Tues­day, some res­i­dents re­act­ed in sur­prise.

The one con­sen­sus, though, was with the promise by PDP leader Wat­son Duke to re­open To­ba­go’s beach­es.

Dou­bles ven­dor

“It’s about time be­cause when the beach open back, the sales might get bet­ter, it might not be how it used to be be­cause COVID is still in the air, but it might be a lit­tle bet­ter than how it is,” Per­sad said.

She said she has one em­ploy­ee and hopes she will soon be able to earn more.

She ad­mits she was sur­prised by the re­sult.

“I didn’t think they would have won it like that but it is good, every­body needs a change.”

She is hop­ing the par­ty can keep its promise to find jobs for the youths of To­ba­go.

Canaan res­i­dent LAN­DRUN MAX­CIME ad­mit­ted he was shocked by the re­sult.

Max­cime said he was loy­al to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and had vot­ed for them on Mon­day.

Max­cime said he felt as though his vote was wast­ed.

“It is what it is, I didn’t ex­pect­ed a to­tal black­out, cause at the end of the day, an op­po­si­tion is good, at least a 9/5 would have been good, but a to­tal black­out, nah,” he said.

Al­though he wasn’t pleased that the PNM had lost the elec­tion, Max­cime said he hopes the PDP can clean up cor­rup­tion in the THA.

“First thing he has to do is clean up the mess, it have too much bobol tak­ing place. A bag of promis­es - for ex­am­ple, the hous­ing tak­ing place it have peo­ple have two and three hous­es from the same gov­ern­ment and a lot of peo­ple don’t have,” he said.

Max­cime said he has a friend who got two hous­es in less than eight years while his ap­pli­ca­tion has been pend­ing ap­proval for over a decade.

He al­so agreed with Duke that To­ba­go’s beach­es should be re­opened.

“At the end of the day, the beach can­not give you COVID-19, I had a prob­lem with that from the jump. It have peo­ple who does come from all over the world to go to the beach,” he said.

KEN­WIN MAR­CELLE, how­ev­er, is wor­ried that re­open­ing beach­es will en­cour­age the COVID-19 virus to spread.

He al­so ex­pressed his wish list for the PDP-led THA.

“They need to work on the roads and some of the prices in the gro­cery re­al ex­pen­sive, they could do some­thing about that,” Mar­celle said.

PDP sup­port­er KER­RON PRICE was hap­py about the re­sult. The Ma­son Hall res­i­dent con­grat­u­lat­ed the PDP.

“We feel sat­is­fied to see that we have a clean sweep with no op­po­si­tion, so we feel proud and hap­py,” Price said.

He hopes Duke is able to keep his promise to re­open beach­es. Price al­so wants a re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of Scar­bor­ough.

“I want to see them re­fur­bish Scar­bor­ough, all those di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings, I want to see them re­vi­talise the town and let it be a tourist at­trac­tion and com­fort­able for all our cit­i­zens,” he said.

Ven­dor ELIZ­A­BETH FAR­RELL told Guardian Me­dia she does not be­lieve beach­es should be re­opened at this time.

“I don’t think is time to open the beach­es due to the fact that the cas­es ris­ing in To­ba­go and it could be a threat to lives,” Far­rell said.

She al­so wants the PDP to help the less for­tu­nate on the is­land.

“They need to ad­dress the home­less peo­ple, it have a lot of food cards shar­ing and the peo­ple who need it not get­ting it, I try­ing to start my busi­ness and I need help, plen­ty of the thing they re­quir­ing and you not get­ting it.”