Casan­dra Thomp­son-Forbes

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) Ash­worth Jack says his par­ty was pre­pared for gen­er­al elec­tion. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, af­ter it was re­vealed that Par­lia­ment was go­ing to be dis­solved, Jack said: "We didn't think the Prime Min­is­ter was jok­ing. We were prepar­ing for an elec­tion. We have al­ready in­vit­ed nom­i­na­tion for can­di­dates."

He said TOP would have a pub­lic meet­ing at Gold­en Lane on Sun­day. Jack said: "We knew the Prime Min­is­ter was go­ing to call an elec­tion be­cause he said so. We saw all the things hap­pen­ing, the screen­ings tak­ing place, so by next week we will an­nounce our can­di­dates.

Our call cir­cu­lar is al­ready out ask­ing peo­ple to nom­i­nate their can­di­dates." He added: "From the time the is­sue of the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion came up and there was the talk of the snap elec­tion, it means that the Prime Min­ster was not as con­fi­dent in his own mem­ber­ship in the Par­lia­ment as he should have been."