Fran­cis Joseph

Take one look at Ash­worth Michael Jack and one would feel he was one of the feared West In­dies fast bowlers, ready to tor­ment the world's lead­ing bats­men. While he nev­er stood along­side Joel Gar­ner, Michael Hold­ing and Col­in Croft (in height), Jack was a na­tion­al 400 me­tre ath­lete, burn­ing up the track. To­day, Jack, 45, is con­sid­ered a very im­por­tant per­son in the pol­i­tics of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP).

He is not con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion on May 24 but has sent two can­di­dates–Vanil­la Al­leyne-Top­pin and Del­mond Bak­er–to fight the To­ba­go East and West seats. Jack has joined forces in an elec­toral ac­com­mo­da­tion with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) and the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC). While he has not thrown his hat in the ring for the gen­er­al elec­tion, he is the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), rep­re­sent­ing Prov­i­dence/Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah dis­trict.

But Jack is qui­et­ly con­fi­dent his par­ty can take the two To­ba­go seats in the gen­er­al elec­tion and be an im­por­tant fac­tor in the for­ma­tion of a coali­tion Gov­ern­ment. Once again, To­ba­go has been placed in the po­si­tion of im­por­tance. In 1995, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the UNC end­ed with 17 seats each. The Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) won the two To­ba­go seats and af­ter an ac­com­mo­da­tion, NAR joined with the UNC to make Bas­deo Pan­day the Prime Min­is­ter. His­to­ry could re­peat it­self again. Should TOP win both or any of the seats in To­ba­go, the par­ty would be in a great po­si­tion to bar­gain.

What ANR Robin­son did not get for To­ba­go out of the ac­com­mo­da­tion, Jack is cer­tain­ly go­ing to bar­gain and get some­thing sub­stan­tive for the peo­ple of To­ba­go. No soon­er had Jack met with Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Jack Warn­er in To­ba­go, he flew to Trinidad and cre­at­ed an im­pres­sion at the UNC meet­ing in Mara­bel­la. UNC sup­port­ers were im­pressed with "ah wee" boy, say­ing "that man could talk." He is a speak­er with depth; he is a per­son who com­mands at­ten­tion, he is a man who can talk. Jack dealt with the is­sues af­fect­ing the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly the con­tentious one of race. He said the time had come for the peo­ple to put aside race and unite and that is why he had joined the ac­com­mo­da­tion. Last night, Jack and 14 oth­er To­bag­o­ni­ans were at the uni­ty launch at Char­lie King Junc­tion, Fyz­abad.

Who is Ash­worth Jack

Ash­worth Michael Jack was born on the Sep­tem­ber, 3, 1964 to Vasil Jack and Eu­ge­nia Blake-Jack. He was the ninth of 11 chil­dren. He re­ceived his pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion at the Ma­son Hall Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and his sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion at the Scar­bor­ough Ju­nior Sec­ondary and Sig­nal Hill Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive Schools. Jack has been in­volved in pol­i­tics for 31 years and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in many par­lia­men­tary fo­ra, in­clud­ing events of the Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary As­so­ci­a­tion and in many con­fer­ences around the World

He has been:

Trea­sur­er and pres­i­dent of the Ma­son Hall Com­mu­ni­ty Ac­tion Group; chair­man of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress (DAC),

To­ba­go East Con­stituen­cy;

chair­man of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), To­ba­go;

chair­man of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress (DAC);

chair­man of the TUFDAC Steer­ing Com­mit­tee;

po­lit­i­cal leader of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP);

as­sis­tant sec­re­tary for Works and In­fra­struc­ture from 1996-2001;

and Mi­nor­i­ty Leader in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

He is the longest serv­ing mem­ber of the cur­rent THA. His pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment in­cludes in­ten­sive train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence in gov­ern­ment, hu­man re­source man­age­ment and pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion and po­lit­i­cal sci­ence. He holds a cer­tifi­cate in man­age­ment, a cer­tifi­cate in tourism man­age­ment and a cer­tifi­cate in dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness. Jack is at present pur­su­ing a Law De­gree.

His com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment has in­clud­ed sev­er­al lead­er­ship and sig­nif­i­cant po­si­tions, among them, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Youth Coun­cil; pres­i­dent of the Methodist Youth Coun­cil; pres­i­dent of the Zenith Sports Club; founder of the Celtic Foot­ball Club and na­tion­al 400 me­tre track ath­lete.