Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) po­lit­i­cal leader, Ash­worth Jack, has cau­tioned the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) that the TOP was go­ing to "shock the na­tion" in its elec­tions re­sults for To­ba­go's two con­stituen­cies in the next gen­er­al elec­tion. Jack and oth­er TOP of­fi­cials en­tered in­to an arrange­ment with mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to de­feat the PNM in To­ba­go for the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion. "The (rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment) PNM in To­ba­go has been the most in­com­pe­tent peo­ple that have been in gov­ern­ment," Jack told the T&T Guardian dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view. "The TOP has al­ways been fight­ing the PNM. This is noth­ing new to us. We have al­ways been fight­ing the PNM, be­cause they have done noth­ing to de­liv­er. We be­lieve that To­ba­go de­serves a lot bet­ter. "I am quite sure that we will shock this na­tion. There is cor­rup­tion in every cor­ner, in­clu­sive of To­ba­go, and they think that peo­ple are not go­ing to be fed up of that?"

It would not be the first time that the UNC and a ma­jor To­ba­go po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion formed a coali­tion to re­move a Man­ning-led PNM gov­ern­ment from of­fice. For­mer UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Bas­deo Pan­day and for­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) po­lit­i­cal leader Arthur NR Robin­son unit­ed their forces in 1995 to put Man­ning out of gov­ern­ment af­ter a snap elec­tion in that year. Ac­cord­ing to Jack, the TOP's nom­i­na­tion process for the To­ba­go East and West seats were on­go­ing and would con­clude to­mor­row. He was un­able to con­firm the prospec­tive nom­i­nees. He in­di­cat­ed that TOP ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and "one or two per­sons from out­side the ex­ec­u­tive" would be on its screen­ing com­mit­tee. At present, PNM MPs Stan­ford Cal­len­der and Ren­nie Du­mas were the in­cum­bent MPs for To­ba­go West and East. Du­mas was seek­ing to de­fend his seat and has put for­ward a nom­i­na­tion to be re-elect­ed as the PNM To­ba­go West can­di­date.

Cal­len­der, how­ev­er, opt­ed to drop out of the elec­toral race and the PNM To­ba­go's coun­cil screened Ter­rence Williams to be their nom­i­nee for To­ba­go East. Both Du­mas and Williams are sched­uled to be among the can­di­dates for ten con­stituen­cies that the PNM's screen­ing com­mit­tee would be in­ter­view­ing to­mor­row. Jack cau­tioned To­bag­o­ni­ans against falling for the non-per­form­ing rhetoric that he thought the PNM would use in their To­ba­go cam­paign. He said that there re­mained no de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion of much of the ma­jor ser­vices that To­bag­o­ni­ans were re­quired to seek out in Trinidad. "Would the peo­ple of Trinidad want to come to Scar­bor­ough to have to do all their ma­jor tasks?" he asked. "These things have not made our lives eas­i­er." He added that To­ba­go's cap­i­tal, Scar­bor­ough, was worse than it was since Man­ning and the PNM re­turned to of­fice in De­cem­ber 2001. "I think peo­ple are tak­ing peo­ple for grant­ed...I think peo­ple think that they can do any­thing and still win," Jack said.

"When the elec­tion is fin­ished, they just throw lit­tle trin­kets at you and they be­lieve that that is go­ing to paci­fy every­one. And that on­ly goes to show what they think about peo­ple." Jack point­ed out that PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don said the PNM was go­ing win all 12 seats in the 2008 THA elec­tions, but the TOP was able to se­cure one-third of the seats. He al­so not­ed that Lon­don re­ferred to the TOP as a bunch of des­per­ate peo­ple. "I have to say that he was cor­rect...We are des­per­ate to rid this coun­try of cor­rup­tion and in­com­pe­tence and the PNM," Jack said. He said the meet­ing be­tween UNC and TOP of­fi­cials was a mu­tu­ial de­ci­sion. "Peo­ple think that this is a new dis­cus­sion," he said. "These are peo­ple that I have known for a quite a while and we have al­ways spo­ken about and what our dif­fer­ent po­si­tions were on a num­ber of mat­ters along with the Con­gress of the Peo­ple."