Gail Alexan­der

and Da­reece Po­lo

Fol­low­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) de­feat in Mon­day’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has con­grat­u­lat­ed To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine on his vic­to­ry, as have Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) leader Mick­ela Pan­day.

State­ments from all three lead­ers al­so re­flect­ed their re­spec­tive par­ties’ views on the elec­tion out­come.

The TPP, led by Au­gus­tine, cap­tured all 15 THA seats in what has been de­scribed as a “blue wash” of To­ba­go — blue be­ing the par­ty’s sig­na­ture colour.

Fol­low­ing the land­slide de­feat, PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis con­ced­ed on Mon­day night and said he would step down.

Beck­les ex­pressed deep dis­ap­point­ment over the par­ty’s crush­ing de­feat, an out­come that leaves the leg­is­la­ture with­out a for­mal op­po­si­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Ed­die Hart Grounds fol­low­ing the fu­ner­al of for­mer PNM MP Ed­die Hart, Beck­les de­scribed the loss as a sober­ing mo­ment for the par­ty, which is mark­ing its 70th an­niver­sary this month. She high­light­ed the PNM’s long his­to­ry of vic­to­ries and set­backs, stress­ing the need for care­ful in­ter­nal re­flec­tion.

Beck­les ex­tend­ed her best wish­es to PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis.

She al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Chief Sec­re­tary-elect Far­ley Au­gus­tine as he pre­pares to lead the THA for a sec­ond term. She made it clear, how­ev­er, that she has no plans to re­quest that in­de­pen­dent in­di­vid­u­als be sworn in as op­po­si­tion mem­bers in an as­sem­bly that will now op­er­ate with­out an of­fi­cial op­po­si­tion.

Al­so speak­ing af­ter Hart’s fu­ner­al was for­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford who de­scribed the par­ty’s loss as un­ex­pect­ed.

“In pol­i­tics, there’s time for glo­ry and there’s a time to weep. And last night was a time for us to weep. We didn’t ex­pect that. I’m not ac­tive, be­cause I’m a re­tiree now, but still fol­low. And I re­al­ly, re­al­ly be­lieved we had a very good chance giv­en all the is­sues that were raised in the cam­paign. But the peo­ple have spo­ken and we have to ac­cept that.”

For­mer prime min­is­ters Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young both de­clined to com­ment on the out­come.

PM looks for­ward to con­tin­ued co­op­er­a­tion

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment con­grat­u­lat­ing the TPP but did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions on when the is­sue of To­ba­go au­ton­o­my would be re­vis­it­ed, when re­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion might be laid, or what spe­cif­ic plans the Gov­ern­ment has for To­ba­go un­der the TPP ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In her state­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I ex­tend sin­cere con­grat­u­la­tions, on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to the Ho­n­ourable Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine, Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, and to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty on their de­ci­sive and his­toric vic­to­ry in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, se­cur­ing all 15 seats and achiev­ing a clean sweep across the is­land.”

“I al­so warm­ly con­grat­u­late the peo­ple of To­ba­go on the peace­ful con­clu­sion of the elec­toral process and the re­sound­ing man­date they have de­liv­ered. This out­come re­flects the con­fi­dence of the To­bag­on­ian elec­torate in the lead­er­ship and vi­sion pre­sent­ed for the fu­ture of the is­land.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment looks for­ward to con­tin­ued co­op­er­a­tion and con­struc­tive en­gage­ment with the THA.

Low vot­er turnout a con­cern — Pan­day

PF leader Mick­ela Pan­day said the elec­tion re­sult was de­ci­sive but warned that low vot­er turnout should con­cern all po­lit­i­cal stake­hold­ers.

“The peo­ple of To­ba­go have spo­ken...At the same time, it is im­por­tant to note that vot­er turnout ap­pears to have been low. That re­al­i­ty should con­cern all of us, re­gard­less of par­ty. Democ­ra­cy is not strength­ened by land­slide vic­to­ries alone, but by broad par­tic­i­pa­tion and pub­lic con­fi­dence in the po­lit­i­cal process.”

Pan­day said low turnout is of­ten a sig­nal “not of ap­a­thy, but of dis­en­gage­ment, frus­tra­tion, or the be­lief that pol­i­tics no longer speaks to every­day strug­gles”.

“That is some­thing every po­lit­i­cal move­ment must re­flect on hon­est­ly,” she added.

Duke: To­ba­go as­sert­ing self-de­ter­mi­na­tion

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke said the elec­tion un­der­scored a grow­ing aware­ness with­in To­ba­go of its right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and ca­pac­i­ty for self-gov­er­nance.

“This con­scious­ness is ground­ed in the con­vic­tion that To­ba­go pos­sess­es the lead­er­ship, tal­ent and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength re­quired to man­age its own af­fairs, with­out re­liance on ex­ter­nal­ly im­posed strate­gies or di­min­ish­ing po­lit­i­cal vi­sions,” Duke said.

He said vot­ers were pre­sent­ed with a clear choice be­tween a To­ba­go-cen­tred po­lit­i­cal di­rec­tion and gov­er­nance shaped by dis­tant par­ty struc­tures. He said the elec­torate re­spond­ed de­ci­sive­ly in favour of the TPP, which he de­scribed as root­ed in To­ba­go’s so­cial fab­ric and po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions.

Duke said po­lit­i­cal ob­servers had not­ed that he played a strate­gic role in shap­ing the out­come, draw­ing on his ex­pe­ri­ence in the 2021 THA elec­tion, when the PDP — of which Au­gus­tine was then a mem­ber — won by a 14–1 mar­gin.

In Mon­day’s poll, Duke said he again ap­plied proven grass­roots strate­gies fo­cused on di­rect com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and mo­bil­i­sa­tion, while na­tion­al lead­er­ship pur­sued broad­er cam­paign ap­proach­es.