Leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) Wat­son Duke has con­firmed that op­po­si­tion par­ties in To­ba­go are hold­ing talks to form a po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty to fight the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions due in 2021.

This fol­lows a call by Wen­dell Berke­ley, Vice Chair­man of the PNM's To­ba­go Coun­cil, for all op­pos­ing par­ties to de­clare their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance.

Speak­ing at the To­ba­go Coun­cil's press brief­ing at the par­ty’s head­quar­ters in Scar­bor­ough on Wednes­day, Berke­ley said po­lit­i­cal par­ties are again “team­ing up” to beat the PNM.

Pri­or to the 2017 THA elec­tions, uni­ty dis­cus­sions be­tween the PDP and To­ba­go For­wards (TF) failed.

Berke­ly called on the lead­ers of the PDP and TF to be “open” about whom they were al­lied with.

“What is Ms Moore’s par­ty al­le­giance? We al­so need to have Mr Duke de­clare his hand? Are you part of the uni­ty or not? Be hon­est and fair with the peo­ple of To­ba­go, let them have a fair chance of as­sess­ing you and as­sess­ing the com­pa­ny you’re in and then de­cide,” Berke­ley said.

Re­spond­ing to Berkley's state­ments, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly's Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Duke said the vice-chair­man should "know his place."

“They have not even con­test­ed nor won a seat nor rep­re­sent peo­ple. Whom do they rep­re­sent? No­body!”

Duke said the PDP has been hav­ing talks with var­i­ous stake­hold­ers and po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions in To­ba­go, to nar­row the gaps that sep­a­rate them.

“We be­lieve that if we are able to unite in To­ba­go we can best rep­re­sent all To­bag­o­ni­ans. This is some­thing which To­ba­go has been cry­ing for ... and de­mand­ing.”

Christlyn Moore, for­mer TF leader, al­so fired back.

“Un­til the PNM gov­ern­ment an­swers ques­tions with­out be­ing tak­en to court, un­til they can an­swer the pop­u­la­tion’s ques­tions about San­dals and about pro­cure­ment for the Galleons Pas­sage, they don’t get to ask me any­thing.”

- by Loyse Vin­cent