Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James said he is not sur­prised that the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) still owes ser­vice providers from the last two elec­tions.

On Thurs­day, a group of providers gath­ered out­side the TPP of­fice at Port Mall, Scar­bor­ough, de­mand­ing that the par­ty set­tle out­stand­ing debts. One provider said he was owed for work done dur­ing the April 28, 2025, gen­er­al elec­tion, while oth­ers said they had not been paid for ser­vices ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

The TPP won the two To­ba­go seats in the gen­er­al elec­tion and swept the THA elec­tions 15-0.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, James de­scribed elec­tions in To­ba­go as “Christ­mas for poor peo­ple,” call­ing them “a vul­gar race” be­tween par­ties to se­cure ex­ec­u­tive pow­er for four years.

“Po­lit­i­cal par­ties find re­sources wher­ev­er they can for their cam­paign­ing, and they take cred­it wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. They take do­na­tions, and that is how the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem works around the coun­try,” he said.

James de­scribed cam­paign­ing in To­ba­go as an ex­pen­sive un­der­tak­ing for par­ties. “Peo­ple have learned they can ef­fec­tive­ly ne­go­ti­ate monies for their sup­port. In the last elec­tion, we saw the busi­ness of giv­ing out ham­pers, fund­ing projects, fix­ing roofs. Peo­ple seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­mand some flow of funds from po­lit­i­cal par­ties, and that is what cre­ates these debts.”

Re­flect­ing on his ex­pe­ri­ence cam­paign­ing for the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion with for­mer chief sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles in the 1990s, James said the dy­nam­ic has long ex­ist­ed.

“It has been go­ing on for decades. We would walk up and down, talk­ing to peo­ple in To­ba­go, and they would tell you, ‘If you can find me $50,000, I can bring out 100 votes for you.’ It is not cheap. They present a des­per­ate pic­ture, and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers feel com­pelled to re­spond,” he said.

James added that the gov­er­nance struc­ture fu­els high cam­paign spend­ing. “Be­cause we are run­ning a dic­ta­tor­ship in Par­lia­ment, both in To­ba­go and Trinidad, there is this rush to win the ex­ec­u­tive. Pa­tron­age pol­i­tics gives rise to the des­per­ate surge to win the ex­ec­u­tive, and that dri­ves the vul­gar­i­ty in the cam­paign process.” He ar­gued that on­ly a fun­da­men­tal re­design of gov­er­nance could change this.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said ma­jor par­ties have no qualms about bend­ing the sys­tem. “You don’t hear any of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties com­plain­ing,” he said.

He not­ed that the law does not pro­vide enough fund­ing for prop­er cam­paigns. “If you look at the law, what it al­lows par­ties to spend is very lim­it­ed. No po­lit­i­cal par­ty can ful­ly fund it­self with­in that frame­work. They have to go be­yond it. I’m not say­ing it’s il­le­gal, but par­ties can­not re­ly sole­ly on what the law al­lows,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, can­di­dates in THA elec­tions must not spend more than $25,000 on their cam­paigns. Win­ford James said par­ties of­ten take out a “loan” from fi­nanciers, re­pay­ing them if they win. He cau­tioned that this sys­tem can un­der­mine gov­er­nance, as fi­nanciers—not the elec­torate—be­come the pri­or­i­ty.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis did not re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia about whether the par­ty still owes providers for elec­tions.