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Friday, July 18, 2025

Tobago’s leadership conundrum

by

1042 days ago
20220910

Not too long ago, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, led by for­mer PSA leader Wat­son Duke and with po­lit­i­cal new­com­er Far­ley Au­gus­tine at his side, promised a new style of pol­i­tics for To­ba­go.

When the po­lit­i­cal par­ty was es­tab­lished in 2016 by Duke, who had al­ready gained no­to­ri­ety as a trade union leader for his at times out­landish an­tics, many laughed at the prospect while oth­ers ques­tioned whether it would be able to sur­vive the test of time.

De­spite this ear­ly tribu­la­tion, in 2017, Duke and Au­gus­tine gained two seats and formed the Mi­nor­i­ty bench in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Three short years lat­er, the PDP man­aged to dis­rupt the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s dom­i­nance in To­ba­go and was part of the un­prece­dent­ed six-six tie that saw a po­lit­i­cal dead­lock on the is­land for the first time in its his­to­ry.

Months lat­er, the PDP de­feat­ed the PNM in a land­slide vic­to­ry and gained con­trol of the THA.

De­spite be­ing the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PDP, Duke stepped aside, al­low­ing Au­gus­tine to be THA Chief Sec­re­tary while he ac­cept­ed the role as deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. Some, how­ev­er, felt Duke’s de­ci­sion to not on­ly make Au­gus­tine the face of the cam­paign but al­so the Chief Sec­re­tary may have been a strate­gic move, giv­en his con­tin­u­ing le­gal is­sues—the de­ter­mi­na­tion of which may yet af­fect Duke’s fu­ture.

Still, when the PDP un­seat­ed the PNM, To­bag­o­ni­ans were hope­ful the is­land’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape was head­ing in a new, vi­brant and pro­gres­sive di­rec­tion, as a new type of in­clu­sive and peo­ple-cen­tred type of pol­i­tics promised by the PDP ap­peared to be emerg­ing.

Now, less than a year since the PDP has been in of­fice, there has been a ma­jor frac­ture in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Duke and Au­gus­tine. So deep is the bust-up be­tween the two that Duke has axed Au­gus­tine as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, hours af­ter the Chief Sec­re­tary promised to re­view Duke’s roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

The gen­e­sis of the frag­men­ta­tion is said to be a lack of fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed to a group of folk per­for­mances who ran in­to dif­fi­cul­ty while on a tour in New York.

But as the say­ing goes, there may be more in the mor­tar than the pes­tle when it comes to the pub­lic spat be­tween the two.

What­ev­er the rea­sons for the grow­ing ac­ri­mo­ny, the peo­ple of To­ba­go are look­ing on with great anx­i­ety as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty they vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly for to take charge of their af­fairs, could very well be on the verge of col­lapse.

The sit­u­a­tion could im­plode fur­ther if Au­gus­tine ex­er­cis­es his au­thor­i­ty un­der the THA Act to re­voke ap­point­ments and re­move Duke from his deputy Chief Sec­re­tary post.

There has al­so been talk by po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts that any con­sid­er­able shake-up in the com­po­si­tion of the rul­ing PDP could snow­ball and lead to an­oth­er trek to the polls for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

But all of this could be avoid­ed if Duke and his once right-hand man Au­gus­tine sit and have a face-to-face dis­cus­sion about the is­sues and reach an am­i­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion, es­pe­cial­ly for the sake of To­ba­go.

The two men came in­to of­fice with the slo­gan “Let we fix it.” It sure­ly is time they take their own ad­vice.


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