Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke says he won’t be en­gag­ing in “the­atrics” ahead of the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions. But while he’s not con­firm­ing his par­tic­i­pa­tion just yet, he’s warn­ing all con­tenders that if he steps in, he’s ready.

Speak­ing on the Morn­ing Brew this morn­ing, Duke said he still sees him­self as the man who de­liv­ered the PDP its biggest win, and pos­si­bly the on­ly one who can do it again.

“We don’t want to do that. We cre­ate our own path, and we trod our own path, and we have been do­ing that,” Duke said dur­ing an in­ter­view on Tues­day morn­ing.

Asked di­rect­ly if he would be tak­ing part in the up­com­ing THA elec­tions, Duke replied, “It’s too ear­ly to say. You know, the games be­gin when the peo­ple line up at the start­ing line. The bell has not been rung, the game has not been called out. So I’m not go­ing to in­form any­one now that Duke is go­ing to par­tic­i­pate. But I’m a politi­cian. I have a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, and I have views that rep­re­sent the peo­ple of To­ba­go, that I con­tin­ue to es­pouse and cham­pi­on for them.”

De­spite oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties al­ready screen­ing can­di­dates, Duke said that shouldn’t be mis­tak­en as a sign that the PDP is be­hind.

“It has to be tak­en for grant­ed that the mo­ment we en­ter the race, we are pre­pared. That has to be tak­en for grant­ed. We don’t have to do stretch­es on the field. We don’t have to… we’re do­ing small sprints on the field be­fore the race be­gins. When the race be­gins, should we be there, it means we are ready to race, and that’s what it is.”

Duke turned to crit­i­cize the cur­rent THA lead­er­ship, which he once led to vic­to­ry but left af­ter a pub­lic spat.

“Far­ley and the oth­er 13 elect­ed of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to op­er­ate un­der the PDP vic­to­ry, call­ing them­selves some blue par­ty. That is ob­nox­ious, it’s dev­il­ish, and it’s evil to know you have won an elec­tion with a par­tic­u­lar man­date. The peo­ple of To­ba­go have ex­pressed their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic will, vot­ing for the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, the PDP, and you went in. You de­serve that? As a mat­ter of fact, you kid­napped that, you bagged it, you put it aside.”

When asked if he be­lieves he can re­peat the PDP’s past suc­cess, Duke was con­fi­dent.

“Un­til the up­com­ing elec­tions are de­ter­mined, I could say to you now, I am the on­ly man who led a par­ty to de­feat the PNM. I’m the on­ly man, and that is on record, that is on the EBC record as 14 seats for the PDP, one for the PNM.”