Jesse Ramdeo

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has told Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to mind his busi­ness.

The re­sponse comes in the wake of Row­ley’s call, in an op-ed on his Face­book page on Sun­day, for Au­gus­tine to call fresh To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, fol­low­ing his group of in­de­pen­dents’ split with the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) and an­nounce­ment of the new To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty.

Au­gus­tine had avoid­ed com­ments on the is­sue when Guardian Me­dia ap­proached him on Sun­day at the To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence. He did not re­spond to calls and al­so was not at two of his of­fi­cial of­fices when this me­dia house went to seek him for com­ment yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, on his per­son­al Face­book page, Au­gus­tine post­ed a video of Dr Row­ley at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing say­ing that as Prime Min­is­ter, he stays out of To­ba­go’s busi­ness.

With his post, Au­gus­tine wrote: “Well just mind yuh damn busi­ness then!”

PDP leader Wat­son Duke shares Row­ley’s view that a re­turn to the polls was need­ed ,but had blamed the PM for not tak­ing more de­ci­sive steps to en­sure this hap­pened.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts con­tend­ed that while Row­ley’s call for Au­gus­tine and his ex­ec­u­tive to re­turn to the polls be­cause they did not have a man­date from the peo­ple of To­ba­go was his po­lit­i­cal pre­rog­a­tive, it could not be legal­ly up­held ac­cord­ing to the THA Act.

Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the PM’s call mir­rored sim­i­lar ones made by the Op­po­si­tion UNC for him to call elec­tion amid a num­ber of gov­er­nance con­cerns.

“That is the Prime Min­is­ter’s call, it does not have any weight in law as it stands right now. We have to be very wary as to what the law says and what the calls are,” Ra­goonath told Guardian Me­dia.

“There was an­oth­er sim­i­lar sce­nario about two years ago when we had the 6-6 tie in the THA. Al­though the Prime Min­is­ter had the leg­is­la­tion passed in March of that year, he re­fused to pro­claim it to call an elec­tion, un­til the leg­is­la­tion was ac­tu­al­ly pro­claimed at the end of Ju­ly, which al­lowed the PNM-led THA to hold on to pow­er for an en­tire 11 months or so with­out hav­ing a man­date.”

He ar­gued that while Dr Row­ley was with­in his right to make the re­quest on eth­i­cal grounds, there was no oblig­a­tion by law for ac­tion to fol­low.

“The ques­tion is, one must have to look at all sides and al­so look at the law and as far as I am con­cerned, the law does not dic­tate or di­rect that an elec­tion be called now based on the in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments of the par­ty pol­i­tics in To­ba­go.”

In his op-ed, Dr Row­ley took aim at the be­hav­iour of Au­gus­tine and his ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

He cau­tioned, “The Chief Sec­re­tary would do well to make arrange­ments for an ear­ly elec­tion with­in the same time frame that he is mak­ing to reg­is­ter a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty with the EBC.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said while Row­ley’s po­lit­i­cal state­ment was ex­pect­ed, the time­li­ness of it was ques­tion­able.

“The Prime Min­is­ter can’t call elec­tions, that is up the Chief Sec­re­tary, but the ques­tion is why did he wait so long? When the guys re­signed from the PDP and formed them­selves in­to a group of in­de­pen­dents, why didn’t he call for fresh elec­tions at that time, why wait un­til now?” James queried.

James al­so not­ed that there was noth­ing il­le­gal with the op­er­a­tion of the cur­rent in­de­pen­dent com­po­si­tion of the THA.

How­ev­er, James con­ced­ed that an elec­tion may be need­ed to en­sure rep­re­sen­ta­tion was not com­pro­mised as a re­sult of the fall­out.

“It is clear that this is not what they would have want­ed, it is not the best place to be in, there are peo­ple who vot­ed for them. The 14 con­stituen­cies vot­ed them in, un­less you do a prop­er poll to de­ter­mine what they want and where the in­de­pen­dents go, there are many peo­ple who sup­port them car­ry­ing on and re­form­ing them­selves, but the Prime Min­is­ter has every right to is­sue the po­lit­i­cal state­ment.”

In a video re­sponse to the im­broglio, To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber chair­man and at­tor­ney Mar­tin George al­so re­it­er­at­ed that Au­gus­tine was not man­dat­ed by law to bow to the Prime Min­is­ter’s call for fresh elec­tions and that the pop­u­la­tion of To­ba­go held the de­ter­min­ing fac­tor for the next step.

“Leg­is­la­tion that gov­erns the na­tion­al par­lia­ment makes it pel­lu­cid that if you en­ter the House of Par­lia­ment on a tick­et of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and you no longer are a mem­ber of that par­ty, then you must va­cate your seat and a by-elec­tion is called for your seat. If that had ap­plied from a le­gal per­spec­tive, then Mr Au­gus­tine and his fol­low­ers will have no choice but to va­cate their seats.

“How­ev­er, in the THA Act, which was craft­ed and draft­ed af­ter these pro­vi­sions were en­trenched in leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing the na­tion­al par­lia­ment, there is no such pro­vi­sion in the THA act.”

George main­tained there was no le­gal im­per­a­tive for one to be forced out of of­fice. He al­so not­ed that the views of cit­i­zens on the is­land on rep­re­sen­ta­tion and democ­ra­cy can­not be over­looked.

“It is up to the peo­ple of To­ba­go, for them to de­cide if they wish to call up­on their lead­ers to say ‘hey lis­ten, we think you ought to do this over and go and seek a fresh man­date now that you have formed this new po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty. So, we have to see how they wish to treat with it.”

Yes­ter­day, a Guardian Me­dia team spoke with cit­i­zens across the is­land who gave mixed re­views on whether or not they sup­port­ed Dr Row­ley’s call for a re­turn to the polls.

Last week, Au­gus­tine un­veiled the To­ba­go’s Peo­ple Par­ty as the new en­ti­ty his team of in­de­pen­dents would op­er­ate un­der. The move came five months af­ter he and oth­er ex­ec­u­tives split from the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, which se­cure a 14-1 vic­to­ry in the is­land’s 2021 elec­tions. The PDP was found­ed by Wat­son Duke, who last year re­signed as THA Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary fol­low­ing a pub­lic spat with Au­gus­tine, which ul­ti­mate­ly led to Duke fir­ing Au­gus­tine and the oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers who be­came in­de­pen­dents.