Loyse Vin­cent

As can­di­dates in the run­ning to be­come elect­ed mem­bers of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) in the Jan­u­ary 25 elec­tion pre­pare to file their nom­i­na­tions at the of­fices of the re­turn­ing of­fi­cers at Calder Hall and John Di­al to­day, one re­ject­ed PNM can­di­date is like­ly to file as an in­de­pen­dent.

The in­cum­bent Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) who cur­rent­ly holds 10 of the 12 elec­toral dis­tricts will go up against the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) which will al­so present twelve can­di­dates for se­lec­tion by the To­ba­go elec­torate.

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine will lead the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, in­to the fight for con­trol of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. The par­ty, which was formed by Wat­son Duke in 2016, will field 12 can­di­dates for all dis­tricts. For the first time, the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM will seek the favour of the To­ba­go elec­torate led by a fe­male, Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine who re­placed Kelvin Charles as the po­lit­i­cal leader in Jan­u­ary 2020.

There were two in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates con­test­ing the elec­tions An­tho­ny Hec­tor for the Black Rock/Whim dis­trict and Niko­cy Phillips who will run for the Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant dis­trict.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that yet an­oth­er in­de­pen­dent can­di­date will throw their hat in the ring to­day—this time for the Scar­bor­ough/Calder Hall dis­trict as Dr Denise Tsoaifatt An­gus will al­so file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to­day.

Dr An­gus who was screened in Oc­to­ber by the PNM was re­ject­ed by the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee. The com­mit­tee in­stead chose to ap­point the in­cum­bent Marslyn Melville Jack as the can­di­date for the Scar­bor­ough/Calder Hall dis­trict. The de­ci­sion did not sit well with a num­ber of par­ty sup­port­ers in the area who open­ly ob­ject­ed to the se­lec­tion. Fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment, par­ty mem­bers wrote sev­er­al let­ters and en­gaged in sev­er­al protest ac­tions. Among the let­ters they wrote was one to the lead­er­ship of the par­ty ask­ing that the de­ci­sion be re­scind­ed as Dr An­gus re­ceived the ma­jor­i­ty nom­i­na­tions from the dis­trict par­ty groups.

On sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, signs and posters were post­ed in the dis­trict with the words “No An­gus No Vote.” How­ev­er, the lead­er­ship of the par­ty re­mained res­olute in their de­ci­sion to pro­ceed to the polls with Melville Jack.

The in­cum­bent re­cent­ly met with mem­bers of the par­ty groups to gar­ner their sup­port. Guardian Me­dia was able to gain ac­cess to a record­ing of that meet­ing where she said the par­ty thought it was best that she re­main as the can­di­date due to her per­for­mance over the last four years. How­ev­er, she said the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM did make an of­fer to Dr An­gus.

“There and then they turned to Dr An­gus and the po­lit­i­cal leader who is the on­ly per­son who could make an of­fer and she turned to Dr An­gus and said I would like to bring you in­to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly as a coun­sel­lor...you know when you come in as a coun­cil­lor you can be a Sec­re­tary or As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary and you have a di­vi­sion to run.”

Melville-Jack told the par­ty group mem­bers that she be­lieves she has the sup­port of enough peo­ple in the dis­trict to bring home at least 2,000 seats. There are 4,314 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers in the dis­trict. The sug­ges­tion didn’t sit well with the mem­bers, many of whom said they be­lieved that many peo­ple were dis­pleased with the de­ci­sion and were pre­pared to with­hold their votes. One par­ty group mem­ber said she felt as if par­ty mem­bers were be­ing ig­nored.

“A lot more per­sons are talk­ing out now right now they are not stay­ing silent and this of great con­cern they are ask­ing to have an­oth­er can­di­date to rep­re­sent them and no­body lis­ten and they are con­cerned be­cause peo­ple feel like some­one is be­ing forced on them and no­body lis­ten­ing any­more.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both Marslyn Melville-Jack and the Dr Denise Tsoifatt An­gus for com­ment but did not re­ceive re­spons­es.