Rishard Khan

& Pe­ter Christo­pher

In its usu­al Good Fri­day tra­di­tion, the Mar­aval Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee (MCC) mar­ried two “bobolees” yes­ter­day.

The lucky cou­ple this year was Far lee Ah gus tin and Tray see Sel les tin­—a play on can­di­dates for To­ba­go Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine fol­low­ing a draw in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions ear­li­er this year.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, MCC chair­man William Bois­selle said it was to sym­bol­ise the pow­er-shar­ing and uni­ty which is float­ed to oc­cur on the is­land. 

“The mes­sage is com­ing to­geth­er. The peo­ple have to come to­geth­er and we ask­ing the pow­ers that may to lis­ten to the peo­ple and...you come to­geth­er and run the af­fairs of To­ba­go,” he said. But in light of the up­surge in COVID-19 cas­es, sec­re­tary of MCC Romona Bois­selle-Ro­mano said there would not be the usu­al fan­fare around the cer­e­mo­ny.

“We aren’t go­ing to have a tra­di­tion­al wed­ding where we have scores of peo­ple com­ing out to wit­ness the ac­tu­al pro­ces­sion and the whole mo­tor­cade and all the fan­fare that comes along with it.

“This year, we’re go­ing to have maybe one or two per­sons beat­ing if we even hav­ing the beat­ing at all,” she said.
Bois­selle-Ro­mano said they opt­ed for a vir­tu­al cer­e­mo­ny which took place at 4.30 pm yes­ter­day on the com­mit­tee’s Face­book page.
The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly has been in lim­bo since elec­tions held on Jan­u­ary 25 end­ed in a 6-6 tied be­tween the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots.
Nei­ther par­ty has been able to come to an agree­ment con­cern­ing the way for­ward, af­ter ini­tial­ly ex­haust­ing all at­tempts to elect the new chief sec­re­tary and ul­ti­mate con­trol of the as­sem­bly.
This stand­off even lead to the amend­ment of the  To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Bill in Par­lia­ment in March to al­low for fresh elec­tions with 15 elec­toral dis­tricts.

How­ev­er, af­ter the bill was passed in the Sen­ate, pow­er-shar­ing talks were opened be­tween both par­ties with­out any suc­cess to date.