Gail Alexan­der

“Vic­tim­i­sa­tion and tyran­ny” is oc­cur­ring in To­ba­go un­der the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) ad­min­is­tra­tion, claims new Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil leader des­ig­nate An­cil Den­nis.

In fact, Den­nis yes­ter­day said many tal­ent­ed, rep­utable PN­Mites chose to stay out of the par­ty’s nom­i­na­tion process for the up­com­ing ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion be­cause of the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment in To­ba­go and due to the PDP’s “vic­tim­i­sa­tion and tyran­ny.”

Den­nis spoke yes­ter­day af­ter he came out as the sole nom­i­nee for the post of leader in Mon­day’s nom­i­na­tion process for the April 24 ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion.

The elec­tion was de­cid­ed up­on by the coun­cil in Jan­u­ary, af­ter the PNM lost the De­cem­ber 6 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion to the PDP in a sear­ing 14-1 de­feat.

In Mon­day’s nom­i­na­tion ex­er­cise, nom­i­nees for the post of leader and 11 oth­er posts were un­op­posed. The April 24 elec­tion will there­fore be for five re­main­ing posts where there were mul­ti­ple nom­i­nees. That in­cludes the chair­man­ship, vice chair­man­ship, gen­er­al sec­re­tary, labour re­la­tions and youth of­fi­cer.

Den­nis said he’d not­ed the nom­i­na­tion out­come and the fact that his nom­i­na­tion for leader was un­op­posed, “...which means I will be the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil.”

On plans and the way for­ward, Den­nis said he’d wait un­til the en­tire ex­ec­u­tive is elect­ed, as some of the po­si­tions will be de­ter­mined on April 24.

“So af­ter that and when the new ex­ec­u­tive meets, we will de­cide col­lec­tive­ly on the way for­ward. Then we can dis­cuss plans and pro­grammes and how the par­ty in­tends to go for­ward,” Den­nis said.

“But I’d like to con­grat­u­late all of the peo­ple who demon­strat­ed great com­mit­ment and courage by of­fer­ing them­selves to be nom­i­nat­ed for the var­i­ous po­si­tions - of­fer­ing them­selves for ser­vice dur­ing this chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od.

“It is not an easy time to serve in the PNM. As a mat­ter of fact, I can tell you a num­ber of tal­ent­ed and rep­utable peo­ple chose to stay out of this process be­cause of the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment in To­ba­go.”

He al­leged, “There have been a num­ber of job loss­es in­volv­ing peo­ple who have been la­belled as ‘po­lit­i­cal hires’ and there has been a lot of vic­tim­i­sa­tion and tyran­ny al­ready demon­strat­ed by this PDP ad­min­is­tra­tion and that has caused a lot of our young PN­Mites es­pe­cial­ly to make the de­ci­sion not to of­fer them­selves. But, of course, they are com­mit­ted to serv­ing and sup­port­ing the par­ty —though from the back­ground.

“So this is the po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment on the is­land at this time but we’ll con­tin­ue to surge for­ward and re­build this par­ty and re­store at some point—at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty - good gov­er­nance to the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

He added, “So I’m ready to serve as I’ve al­ways been and to com­mit my­self whole­heart­ed­ly to the lead­er­ship of the To­ba­go PNM so that we can treat with our in­ter­nal is­sues and of course get to the point of restor­ing the con­fi­dence the peo­ple of To­ba­go once had in the PNM.”