ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The po­lit­i­cal leader of the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus says the Gen­er­al Elec­tion was called at a time when the econ­o­my was strug­gling and back pay is­sues still per­sist.

Fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of the elec­tion date, Tsoiafatt-An­gus be­lieves vot­ers will head to the polls dis­tract­ed from the gov­ern­ment’s poor per­for­mance giv­en re­cent “the­atrics.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Tsoiafatt-An­gus said the IDA has been en­sur­ing it was pre­pared when­ev­er the elec­tion was called.

“The IDA is ready for the elec­tions,” she said.

How­ev­er, she said the re­cent bil­lion-dol­lar com­mis­sion­ing ac­tiv­i­ty by the Gov­ern­ment for the prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion of the con­struc­tion of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block two weeks ago fol­lowed by the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal par­tial com­mis­sion­ing last week­end, was a strat­e­gy to de­ceive.

“At a time when the econ­o­my is at its low­est and back pay is­sues have not even been set­tled. Will the peo­ple re­ward the PNM for its ob­vi­ous abuse of pub­lic funds over the last week for their own po­lit­i­cal mileage? That ques­tion will soon be an­swered.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus ar­gued that the tim­ing of the elec­tion call is de­signed to shift pub­lic at­ten­tion away from deep­er eco­nom­ic strug­gles. She point­ed to ris­ing food prices, con­tin­ued for­eign ex­change short­ages, and the fi­nan­cial strain on work­ing-class cit­i­zens as key is­sues the Gov­ern­ment has failed to ad­dress.

She fur­ther crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as “po­lit­i­cal the­atrics” in re­cent weeks, in­clud­ing the for­mer prime min­is­ter’s farewell ral­ly and the sud­den Cab­i­net reshuf­fle.

“These are not gen­uine at­tempts to im­prove gov­er­nance. They are dis­trac­tions. What we are wit­ness­ing is a des­per­ate ad­min­is­tra­tion try­ing to hold on­to pow­er at any cost,” she said.

The IDA leader claimed these moves showed that the rul­ing par­ty mis­used pub­lic funds for po­lit­i­cal gain.

Mean­while, she said her par­ty is set to in­tro­duce its can­di­dates at a me­dia con­fer­ence on March 25.

“We are pre­sent­ing a team of lead­ers who un­der­stand the strug­gles of every­day cit­i­zens. Our can­di­dates will bring re­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly here in To­ba­go,” she said.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus called on vot­ers to de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty and choose lead­er­ship that pri­or­i­tizes their needs over po­lit­i­cal spec­ta­cle.

She hoped cit­i­zens would first as­sess the Gov­ern­ment’s track record be­fore head­ing to the polls on April 28.

“This elec­tion is not just about who wins or los­es—it’s about en­sur­ing that those in pow­er work for the peo­ple, not them­selves,” she said.