Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

With just six weeks left in the life of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has of­fered no hint of an elec­tion time­line.

He on­ly said that it “could be any time” and that no de­ci­sion has yet been tak­en on dis­solv­ing the As­sem­bly. He said the tim­ing of the elec­tion de­pends en­tire­ly on that process.

The as­sem­bly meets to­day and then like­ly for the last time in No­vem­ber be­fore the term ends on its four-year an­niver­sary on De­cem­ber 6.

Au­gus­tine, leader of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), told the me­dia on Tues­day, “The de­ci­sion that we have to make is whether the House will dis­solve on its an­niver­sary for it­self or whether the House will meet and de­cide to dis­solve pri­or to. That has not been de­cid­ed as yet, and that will ul­ti­mate­ly trig­ger when the elec­tion could pos­si­bly be called.

He added, “Well, based on the law, once the House is dis­solved, we have two to three months there­after to have the elec­tion,” Au­gus­tine said.

“More than that, we have to al­so pay at­ten­tion to the statu­to­ry re­quire­ment in terms of what hap­pens be­tween when the writ is is­sued for the elec­tion and EBC do­ing the nec­es­saries. So the elec­tion can be any time.”

The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots par­ty, led by Wat­son Duke, was elect­ed in De­cem­ber 2021 fol­low­ing a his­toric 14–1 re­sult against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment. The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty was formed fol­low­ing mass res­ig­na­tion with­in the PDP, af­ter less than a year in of­fice.

Au­gus­tine al­so con­firmed that in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal prepa­ra­tions have be­gun with­in the TPP.

The TPP cur­rent­ly leads the as­sem­bly.

Au­gus­tine fur­ther said that the par­ty has com­plet­ed its nom­i­na­tion process and will soon be­gin screen­ing can­di­dates.

He said his par­ty will be­gin to in­ten­si­fy elec­tion prepa­ra­tion once the screen­ing phase is com­plete.