SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

As Nom­i­na­tion Day be­gan in To­ba­go yes­ter­day, large groups of sup­port­ers from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) kicked off the day by gath­er­ing at the var­i­ous nom­i­na­tion sites.

At the Pem­broke Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, sup­port­ers of PNM can­di­dates Na­dine Stew­art-Phillips (Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle) and Kei­th Thomas (Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan) gath­ered first. Dressed in their par­ty jer­seys, the group wait­ed pa­tient­ly for Stew­art-Phillips to com­plete the process. When she was done, they cheered loud­ly as she dis­played her nom­i­na­tion slip.

As Thomas en­tered the build­ing to start the process, the un­mis­tak­able bass of a mu­sic truck caused a few sup­port­ers to turn and stare. The truck her­ald­ed the ar­rival of the PDP sup­port­ers, who danced, sang and chant­ed their way up the nar­row road­way to the cen­tre.

Af­ter pos­ing for pho­tos out­side, PDP leader Wat­son Duke and deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine went in for their pho­tos.

Their sup­port­ers re­mained crowd­ed out­side, wav­ing flags and danc­ing. The fes­tive mood was quick­ly bro­ken through when a PNM flag-bear­er start­ed to dis­play her flag in the midst of the PDP crowd.

There were shouts from both sides, with one PDP sup­port­er threat­en­ing to take off her par­ty T-shirt and ad­min­is­ter­ing a beat­ing to the PNM flag-bear­er.

Oth­er sup­port­ers quelled the out­burst but it would set the tone for the rest of the day.

Af­ter Duke and Au­gus­tine filed their nom­i­na­tions, their en­tourage, mu­sic truck in­clud­ed, head­ed to the Calder Hall Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty.

There, they met a large group of PNM sup­port­ers wait­ing for Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, Down­ie Mar­celle and Learie Paul to com­plete their screen­ing.

Ten­sions ran high as sup­port­ers from both camps crowd­ed the road­way, with sound clash­es tak­ing place be­tween mu­sic trucks and some over-ex­u­ber­ant sup­port­ers jeer­ing at each oth­er.

PDP sup­port­ers quick­ly took over though, danc­ing and wav­ing their flags.

About an hour lat­er, when David­son-Ce­les­tine and her team left, most of the PNM sup­port­ers al­so left.

They gath­ered a short dis­tance away around a mu­sic truck. As the PDP sup­port­ers rev­elled in their par­ty an­thems, po­lice ar­rived and things quick­ly turned sour.

ACP William Nurse, with his ba­ton in hand, tried to get the crowd to dis­perse in­to groups of 10 in keep­ing with the Pub­lic Health Guide­lines.

But even as he raised his voice to be heard over the mu­sic, PDP sup­port­ers were shout­ing that they were be­ing tar­get­ed by po­lice.

“Can I ask you a ques­tion?” one PDP sup­port­er shout­ed at Nurse, who quick­ly re­tort­ed, “I am not tak­ing any ques­tions!”

Guardian Me­dia asked Nurse short­ly af­ter to ad­dress the sup­port­ers’ con­cerns.

“Look around here, whose sup­port­ers are you see­ing? This is what I am deal­ing with now and wher­ev­er they are, I am go­ing to find them, I am go­ing to walk and find them and I have no time to en­ter­tain wild and un­based state­ments—my thing is that peo­ple must be prop­er­ly dis­tanced for the safe­ty. At the end of the elec­tion we all have to live here, whether you are sick or you are well,” Nurse said.

He said he was up­set be­cause ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, there was on­ly one bed left in the In­ten­sive Care Unit for COVID-19 pa­tients.

“Is it not fool­ish to be do­ing this? I don’t know how much kinder I can be with my words, I am an­noyed,” Nurse said.

The PDP sup­port­ers even­tu­al­ly heed­ed Nurse’s warn­ing, but min­utes lat­er there was an­oth­er up­roar as a po­lice of­fi­cer at­tempt­ed to make sup­port­ers turn off their mu­sic.

That quar­rel went on for about five min­utes and end­ed when the mu­sic be­gan play­ing again, draw­ing shouts of ap­proval from the PDP camp.

The group then head­ed to the Lam­beau Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty. PNM sup­port­ers who gath­ered to wait for Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis to ar­rive for screen­ing stood on one side of the street and the PDP sup­port­ers lined the oth­er side.

While there was no PNM mu­sic truck present, a drum kit was set up a short dis­tance away from the fa­cil­i­ty and the man play­ing it kept an al­most con­stant beat. He on­ly in­ten­si­fied play­ing when Den­nis and oth­er PNM can­di­dates ex­it­ed the fa­cil­i­ty.

Hav­ing been warned against play­ing their mu­sic by even more po­lice of­fi­cers, the PDP sup­port­ers set­tled for chant­i­ng, with cries of “Far­ley” and “Doh back back” cut­ting through the hu­mid af­ter­noon. By 2.30, most of the sup­port­ers of both camps had left for the day, leav­ing the fa­cil­i­ty once again in si­lence.