Joshua Seemu­n­gal

To­bag­o­ni­ans re­turn to the polls on Mon­day for the sec­ond To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Elec­tions (THA) of 2021.

The sec­ond elec­tion comes af­ter a dra­mat­ic and his­toric 6-6 tie, be­tween The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, in Jan­u­ary, that forced To­ba­go to re­turn to the polls.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Win­ford James, if To­ba­go does not get this elec­tion right, it will in­def­i­nite­ly de­lay the change the is­land so des­per­ate­ly needs.

“It’s at a stage where the au­ton­o­my move­ment in To­ba­go has reached. Peo­ple are say­ing that af­ter 21 years of PNM– with­out the re­form of the con­sti­tu­tion in To­ba­go, equal­i­ty of sta­tus and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion– and giv­en the mo­men­tous re­sult that hap­pened in Jan­u­ary, this is an elec­tion of crit­i­cal im­por­tance,” James said about the elec­tion.

“To­ba­go needs to break from de­pen­dence on Trinidad. To­ba­go needs to be able to con­tribute more mean­ing­ful­ly, and to have the au­thor­i­ty and means to con­tribute to the en­tire coun­try,” he said.

James be­lieved the key to much-need­ed in­de­pen­dence rests in elect­ing a ‘To­ba­go-bizz’ par­ty. “This is a mo­men­tous elec­tion if the PDP wins. Ob­vi­ous­ly, it’s not mo­men­tous for the PNM, they just want to con­tin­ue in pow­er. They feel they are the on­ly par­ty that can run the coun­try. They mere­ly want to re­tain pow­er, but there are thou­sands of To­bag­o­ni­ans who want change,” Dr James said.

“The elec­tions can em­bold­en that move. For that to hap­pen, the PDP will have to win. It won’t hap­pen un­der the PNM. Un­der the PNM, it will be the same sta­sis that we’ve had since Orville Lon­don took over from Ho­choy Charles. Af­ter 21 years, the is­land has been more or less at a stand­still.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath agreed the elec­tion was very crit­i­cal but he didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be­lieve it was the most im­por­tant elec­tion in To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.

“It’s crit­i­cal be­cause it places the To­ba­go elec­torate in a po­si­tion where they would now be able to make a choice as to whether, or not, they con­tin­ue to sup­port the PNM or whether they will sup­port a new par­ty,” Ra­goonath said.

“And (it’s al­so crit­i­cal) giv­en the na­ture of the cam­paign, where­by, the PNM in­sists the cam­paign is one about main­tain­ing its re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad, as op­posed to the pro­jec­tion of the PDP, which is more or less, se­ces­sion.”

He said it’s al­so im­por­tant from the per­spec­tive that peo­ple are look­ing to see if it starts a po­lit­i­cal trend, against the gov­ern­ment, that could pick up in Trinidad.

In the Jan­u­ary 25 elec­tions, PNM won Canaan/Bon Ac­cord, Black Rock/Whim/Spring Gar­den, Scar­bor­ough/Calder Hill, Lam­beau/Sig­nal Hill, Ba­co­let/Mt St George and Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant.

The PDP won Good­wood/Belle Gar­den West, Spey­side/L’ Anse Four­mi/Par­lu­tivi­er, Bethel/Mt Irvine, Prov­i­dence/Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah, Ply­mouth/Gold­en Lane and Rox­bor­ough/De­laford.

How­ev­er, with­out a chance of a tie this time, Mon­day’s high­ly-an­tic­i­pat­ed elec­tion will put an end to close to eleven months of po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty in To­ba­go.

In­stead of 12 seats, 15 seats will be con­test­ed af­ter the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion amend­ed the elec­toral bound­aries with par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

The elec­tion wills be con­test­ed by 45 can­di­dates, from five par­ties.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots are con­test­ing all 15 seats.

The In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance is con­test­ing 13 seats, while The Uni­ty of the Peo­ple and the Class Ac­tion Re­form Move­ment are con­test­ing one seat– Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant, ac­cord­ing to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

To­ba­go Coun­cil Leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine leads the PNM, while the PDP is led by Wat­son Duke, how­ev­er, its deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine con­tin­ues to be the face and voice of the par­ty.

The In­no­v­a­tive De­moc­ra­tive Al­liance is led by for­mer PNM mem­ber Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, while The Uni­ty of the Peo­ple is mar­shalled by Nick­o­cy Phillips, and the Class Ac­tion Re­form Move­ment by Ri­car­do Phillip.

THA Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis is ex­pect­ed to vote at 10 am at the Buc­coo Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, while PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil Leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine will be vot­ing at the De­laford Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter at 8 am.

PDP’s deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine is ex­pect­ed to vote at Spey­side AC School at 10 am, while the par­ty’s leader Wat­son Duke will vote at 10 am the Rox­bor­ough AC School.