Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion is to­day ex­pect­ed to echo To­ba­go calls for more con­sul­ta­tion on the two To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills and most es­tranged Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MPs aren’t sup­port­ing the bills.

“If the Row­ley-led PNM had any se­ri­ous in­ter­est in To­bag­o­ni­ans and To­ba­go af­fairs, they’d not have sim­ply left these bills at the Com­mit­tee Stage in Par­lia­ment idling for the past three years and on­ly now try to put the gear on dri­ve. They could have had fur­ther con­sul­ta­tions as I re­quest­ed over the past three years,” said es­tranged UNC MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who yes­ter­day said the bills won’t get his vote.

“Talk­ing down to To­bag­o­ni­ans didn’t work in the last To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions and it won’t work mov­ing for­ward in the im­mi­nent gen­er­al elec­tions.”

To­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ses­sion will fea­ture con­clu­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) and To­ba­go Is­land Ad­min­is­tra­tion Bill in­volv­ing 62 claus­es and sev­er­al sec­tions. It seeks to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion to con­fer self-gov­ern­ment on To­ba­go and an ex­ec­u­tive body called the “To­ba­go Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil.” Law-mak­ing pow­er would, how­ev­er, be re­strict­ed to cer­tain mat­ters.

Al­so be­ing de­bat­ed is the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s draft or­der on the EBC’s re­vi­sion of con­stituen­cy bound­aries.

The To­ba­go bills have been in fi­nal (Com­mit­tee) stage of ex­am­i­na­tion of their claus­es since 2021. Then, the Op­po­si­tion had called for more con­sul­ta­tion with To­ba­go—but lat­er walked out of Par­lia­ment in a tiff with Gov­ern­ment over speak­ing time for the Prime Min­is­ter. Gov­ern­ment for­ward­ed the bills to fi­nal com­mit­tee stage, sav­ing the work over suc­ceed­ing years.

The THA elec­tion was called in De­cem­ber 2021 and the PNM was swept out of of­fice by Wat­son Duke’s Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP). In 2022, how­ev­er, PDP deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine and sup­port­ers split from the PDP and formed the To­ba­go Peo­ples’ Par­ty (TPP), which now con­trols the THA.

Last week, Au­gus­tine, con­cerned about the bills be­ing “rushed,” said he felt the on­ly time they were put on the front­burn­er is “when an elec­tion is com­ing and per­haps the Prime Min­is­ter plans to dis­solve Par­lia­ment” to call the elec­tion.

Au­gus­tine said al­though he’d pub­licly called for meet­ings among the Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader, him­self and in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, that hasn’t hap­pened. He said the bills shouldn’t be dis­pensed with but im­proved up­on to meet To­bag­o­ni­ans’ de­mands. Au­gus­tine felt the on­ly ac­cept­able bills must in­volve a fed­er­al-type sys­tem and they would re­quire work if such com­po­nents are ab­sent.

There was no re­ply yes­ter­day from House leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is on what was Gov­ern­ment’s view of the pro­posed fed­er­al-type sys­tem and if Gov­ern­ment would present amend­ments to­day. A PNM source said they were await­ing to see if the UNC brings amend­ments.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­ply to queries yes­ter­day on what po­si­tion the par­ty may present. But oth­er UNC sources felt the par­ty would echo a ma­jor­i­ty call by To­bag­o­ni­ans—and Au­gus­tine’s ad­min­is­tra­tion on more con­sul­ta­tion—par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing the huge 2021 man­date.

The spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty bills re­quire Op­po­si­tion votes for pas­sage in ad­di­tion to the PNM’s 22.

MP Rod­ney Charles didn’t re­ply to ques­tions on the bills, nor did Rai Rag­bir, who vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment on the Whistle­blow­er bill. MP Rush­ton Paray is against the bill.

Ram­bal­ly, al­so say­ing “no” to the bills, not­ed that dur­ing the 2025 Bud­get de­bate, the Prime Min­is­ter promised he would re­turn the bills.

Ram­bal­ly added, “This was be­cause he an­tic­i­pates the sup­port of the five UNC ‘dis­si­dents’ to get him to the three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote need­ed for pas­sage. As one of those dis­si­dents, who served on the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on the To­ba­go Bills and who wrote the mi­nor­i­ty re­port on the JSC con­sul­ta­tions, I want to alert the Prime Min­is­ter that his hopes are in vain.”

Not­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans who ob­ject­ed to the bills in 2021 and re­cent­ly, Ram­bal­ly sug­gest­ed Trinida­di­ans al­so need to weigh in on the bills.

“We’re part of this too ... but it seems that the PNM, and the Prime Min­is­ter, have very dif­fer­ent ideas about democ­ra­cy. For this rea­son, the Prime Min­is­ter may not count on my vote to push this hur­ried, ill-thought out and un­pop­u­lar To­ba­go agen­da through.”

Duke: To­bag­o­ni­ans be­ing forced

PDP leader Wat­son Duke has al­so told Guardian Me­dia that To­ba­go is in no po­si­tion to de­cide, as the con­sul­ta­tions on the bills were not thor­ough.

Pro­ject­ing the bills were head­ed for fail­ure, Duke added that To­ba­go hasn’t cho­sen au­ton­o­my.

“It’s be­ing forced up­on To­bag­o­ni­ans through the skul­dug­gery of some of our pre­vi­ous and cur­rent THA ex­ec­u­tives,” he claimed.

“How­ev­er, To­bag­o­ni­ans are now de­mand­ing their right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, which is our God-giv­en right that all peo­ple are born with—the right to choose their own po­lit­i­cal sta­tus—in­de­pen­dence, au­ton­o­my or as­so­ci­a­tion—with­out any ex­ter­nal in­flu­ence and to freely pur­sue To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic, so­cial and cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment.”

Duke added, “Sim­ply put, To­bag­o­ni­ans want to have a full fair and free con­ver­sa­tion about their fu­tures with­out ex­ter­nal pres­sures from the PNM Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment or in­ter­nal trick­ery from Far­ley and friends who seek rel­e­vance un­der the guise of ad­vo­cat­ing for a fed­er­al arrange­ment be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.”