Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­nied any dis­cus­sions or al­liance with Far­ley Au­gus­tine, leader of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), dis­miss­ing an au­dio record­ing cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia as “fake news.”

In the al­leged record­ing, voic­es pur­port­ing to be those of Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Au­gus­tine are heard dis­cussing po­lit­i­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion and fund­ing from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) that sup­port­ed Au­gus­tine and his team—un­der the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots—dur­ing the 2021 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

The clip quick­ly spread on so­cial me­dia, prompt­ing heat­ed de­bate and calls for Au­gus­tine to clear his name.

Au­gus­tine had on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions dis­tanced him­self from the UNC or plans to form a coali­tion, deem­ing TPP as a To­ba­go par­ty. Au­gus­tine could not be reached for com­ment.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed the en­tire episode.

“Fake news,” she in­ter­ject­ed be­fore Guardian Me­dia had a chance to com­plete the first ques­tion.

“I have not heard it. I have not had a con­ver­sa­tion with Mr Far­ley,” she said.

When told a copy of the record­ing could be sent to her, she replied, “I don’t have time for that, ma’am. But I’m giv­ing you the as­sur­ance I have had no con­ver­sa­tion with Mr Far­ley. I think the last time we spoke was when they were do­ing the To­ba­go bills in Par­lia­ment, which was like two or three years ago.

“I have had no con­ver­sa­tion with Mr Far­ley as al­leged or oth­er­wise with re­spect to this elec­tion. Fake news.”

Asked about the claim in the record­ing that mon­ey was sent to as­sist the TPP, she again replied, “Fake news again. I send mon­ey? Fake news.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­nied ever dis­cussing a coali­tion with the TPP or any To­ba­go-based par­ty.

“I said I would stay out. The UNC and our coali­tion part­ners in Trinidad would stay out. We will let the peo­ple of To­ba­go de­cide what hap­pens in To­ba­go. There will be no such dis­cus­sions,” she said.

“I’m con­cen­trat­ing on win­ning the seats in Trinidad, and I’m sure they are work­ing very hard to get their seats in To­ba­go.”

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of PNM To­ba­go An­cil Den­nis said yes­ter­day, “I have noth­ing more to say than I told you all so. I have been say­ing all along that the TPP is in fact in bed with the UNC, col­lab­o­rat­ing with the UNC for a long time now. They are the UNC in To­ba­go.”

He said he was not sur­prised the record­ing was be­ing la­belled as AI and fake news.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said, “The record­ing seemed to be doc­tored.”

He added, “I don’t think, and I don’t even be­lieve, that there’s a re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Chief Sec­re­tary and the Op­po­si­tion Leader of that na­ture.”

Mo­hammed said the coun­try was in the age of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and warned vot­ers to be care­ful about what they ac­cept as re­al.

“There’s a use of AI to cre­ate a lot of videos and im­ages that are ridicu­lous and of­fen­sive. It’s not lim­it­ed to merg­ing con­ver­sa­tions,” he said.

He added that the tone used in the al­leged clip did not sound gen­uine, nor did it match how Per­sad-Bisses­sar or Au­gus­tine usu­al­ly speak.

“The bot­tom line is: Does the UNC’s vi­sion and the TPP’s vi­sion align for To­ba­go? We don’t know that,” he said.

“I’ve not heard the UNC pro­mote the kind of To­ba­go au­ton­o­my that TPP is cam­paign­ing on. Let us be very dis­cern­ing. There’s no re­la­tion­ship what­so­ev­er be­tween the UNC and the TPP.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Prof Hamid Ghany said if a hung Par­lia­ment were to emerge af­ter the next gen­er­al elec­tion, it’s pos­si­ble that the TPP may opt out of form­ing any gov­ern­ment.

“The TPP is a home-grown par­ty based on To­ba­go na­tion­al­ism,” Ghany ex­plained. “I don’t know that they are too in­ter­est­ed in be­ing in­volved in Trinidad pol­i­tics oth­er than to ne­go­ti­ate with the seat of pow­er in Port-of-Spain, which they re­gard as alien.”

He warned that col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two could be dif­fi­cult, even if they were to win enough seats col­lec­tive­ly.

“Far­ley Au­gus­tine does not seem to be en­am­oured with the idea of en­gag­ing in col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in a Cab­i­net. That means the TPP would have to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Trinidad pol­i­cy as well, which may not align with their To­ba­go-first ap­proach.”

Ghany al­so not­ed that the two To­ba­go seats could de­cide the out­come of the next gen­er­al elec­tion, es­pe­cial­ly if it is a close race.

In an analy­sis by Prof Ghany in to­day’s news­pa­per, he de­scribed the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion in To­ba­go as one of the most close­ly watched and po­ten­tial­ly game-chang­ing bat­tles, giv­en the dra­mat­ic shift in vot­er pref­er­ence on the is­land since 2020.

Ghany, us­ing de­tailed da­ta from polling di­vi­sions in both To­ba­go East and West, showed how the PNM’s sup­port has de­clined while the PDP’s rose sharply in 2021.