Derek Achong

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal leader and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke wants to be­come Prime Min­is­ter of T&T.

Duke re­vealed his long-term po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tion while ad­dress­ing the me­dia dur­ing the open­ing of the par­ty’s Trinidad head­quar­ters at Sec­ond Street, Barataria, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Duke said: “We are a po­lit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion that start­ed on the east side of To­ba­go, which then swept the whole of To­ba­go and now start­ing in Trinidad. We have to change the sta­tus quo...we want to be the first po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty to rep­re­sent the peo­ple based on what they de­sire and their vi­sion for them­selves.”

“The truth is my re­turn to the work­ing class and the peo­ple of T&T will be on the top lev­el. No longer would I be knock­ing on doors and talk­ing through the bull­horn. I would now be sit­ting at the ta­ble mak­ing de­ci­sions,” he added.

Duke stat­ed that of­fice open­ing was the be­gin­ning of the par­ty’s plan to con­test every na­tion­al elec­tion.

“The PDP plans to con­test every sin­gle elec­tion that presents it­self in Trinidad. Every sin­gle one. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Gen­er­al,” he said.

Asked whether the par­ty would com­mit to con­test­ing all 39 con­stituen­cies in Trinidad as well as the two in To­ba­go and all re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, Duke said it would de­pend on feed­back from cit­i­zens.

“The mo­ment will de­cide. We are not just com­pet­ing to be nu­mer­ous, we are com­pet­ing to be rel­e­vant,” he said.

“Once there is the feel­ing that per­sons in their cor­po­ra­tions want us, we will avail our­selves. We are not go­ing to force our­selves on peo­ple that do not want our rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” Duke said.

Duke al­so firm­ly re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tion that the par­ty would con­sid­er form­ing a coali­tion with oth­er small­er po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties in or­der to bet­ter com­pete against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), which have con­tin­u­ous­ly dom­i­nat­ed lo­cal pol­i­tics.

“The PDP does not be­lieve in a coali­tion. They have not worked. They leave a sour taste in the mouth of the peo­ple be­cause af­ter they win elec­tions they do not last,” he said.

“PDP is not a third force, nor do we want to be a force. The PDP is a po­lit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion,” he added.

He called on mem­bers of failed for­mer small­er par­ties to con­sid­er join­ing the PDP.

“What the PDP is open to is for any per­son from any po­lit­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tion giv­ing up their po­lit­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tion and join­ing the PDP. That is how we do it. One com­man­der in chief, one army, and one mis­sion,” he said.

Duke ad­mit­ted that he was heart­ened by the feed­back he has re­ceived dur­ing walk­a­bouts in com­mu­ni­ties in San Juan, Barataria, and east Port-of-Spain over the past few weeks in the run-up to the of­fice open­ing.

“It has been over­whelm­ing and at times mov­ing one to tears,” Duke said.

“The love the peo­ple have for the ones who want to lead them is more than the love that those who lead them have for the peo­ple that they lead,” he added.

Duke al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence that his role in ex­pand­ing the PDP pres­ence and in­flu­ence in Trinidad would not af­fect the par­ty’s work in the THA.

Duke said that Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine had the sup­port of the largest THA ex­ec­u­tive in its his­to­ry af­ter the par­ty se­cured 14 out of five dis­tricts in the THA elec­tion in De­cem­ber, last year.

“I think that is more than enough to man­age To­ba­go and its fringes in­clud­ing its wa­ters,” Duke said.

Ques­tioned whether his po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tions would be af­fect­ed by the fact that he is still fac­ing crim­i­nal charges for sex­u­al as­sault, Duke dis­missed the is­sue.

“The me­dia and the courts are say­ing that but what are the peo­ple on the ground say­ing? We want Wat­son! We want Wat­son! I say who the peo­ple set free are in­deed free,” he said.

Duke said he ex­pect­ed the sup­port of some mem­bers of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), which he led as Pres­i­dent for 12 con­sec­u­tive years be­fore be­ing forced to re­sign af­ter his suc­cess in the THA elec­tion.

Asked his thoughts on the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent move to fur­ther re­duce sub­si­dies due to the rapid in­crease in the price of oil, Duke ad­mit­ted that a mass protest led by the PDP may be on the hori­zon based on feed­back it re­ceives from cit­i­zens.

“If it re­quires us to ap­ply for the per­mis­sion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, we would do so and fill the streets and say no to high­er gas prices. The streets would be so full that I would guar­an­tee you that the gas prices would be pushed back,” he said.

Yes­ter­day’s launch was at­tend­ed by scores of sup­port­ers all dressed in the PDP’s black and green T-shirts. At­ten­dees were treat­ed to en­ter­tain­ment from sev­er­al lo­cal artists, a tas­sa group and a rhythm sec­tion.

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