Camille McEach­nie

The mem­bers of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) who won six seats in the Jan­u­ary 25 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, staged a sit-in at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture build­ing, Jern­ing­ham Street, Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day.

The PDP cit­ed a breach of the THA’s Act re­lat­ing to the pro­ce­dures for se­lect­ing a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer for the 2021-2025 THA term.

Ad­dress­ing the pub­lic live on so­cial me­dia from the As­sem­bly cham­ber dur­ing the sit-in, the PDP’s po­lit­i­cal leader and As­sem­bly­man for Belle Gar­den East, Rox­bor­ough/De­laford Wat­son Duke said: “We are not leav­ing here un­til she (the clerk) re­turns and this house is called to or­der for the con­duct of a meet­ing for the elect­ing of a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.”

Be­fore the PDP’s sit-in, the As­sem­bly met, and the As­sem­bly­men vot­ed sev­en times for a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer. Each end­ed with the same re­sult as the As­sem­bly­men vot­ed along par­ty lines, re­sult­ing in a tie. The PNM pro­posed In­grid Melville, while the PDP chose Julien Skeete.

The PNM pro­posed a new nom­i­nee. How­ev­er, mem­bers did not vote on the nom­i­nee as the per­son was not named.

The Clerk of the As­sem­bly Mer­na McLeod end­ed the ses­sion af­ter the sev­enth round of vot­ing, ad­journ­ing the meet­ing to Feb­ru­ary 4. Dis­sat­is­fied with the move, Duke re­quest­ed that the clerk con­tin­ue the meet­ing.

She did not ac­cede to his re­quest.

This was the As­sem­bly­men’s sec­ond at­tempt to elect a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer as they held a meet­ing on Jan­u­ary 28, just af­ter they were sworn in by Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort.

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the meet­ing, the PDP’s deputy leader and can­di­dates for Par­latu­vi­er/L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side Far­ley Au­gus­tine ex­plained why they ob­ject­ed to the clerk’s ac­tions.

“When we look at Sec­tion (6) un­der the elec­tion of a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer it says if the pro­pos­al is neg­a­tive the clerk shall pro­pose a like ques­tion in re­spect of any oth­er mem­ber or per­son...in the or­der in which they were pro­posed,” Au­gus­tine said.

Members of the Progressive Democratic Patriots during thier sit-in at the THA yesterday.

PNM gives its take on sit­u­a­tion

The PNM al­so spoke with re­porters af­ter the ses­sion.

The par­ty’s Lam­beau/Sig­nal Hill can­di­date Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said their new nom­i­nee for the post is Dr Ken John­son.

She hoped that the DPD would sup­port Dr John­son af­ter re­ject­ing the last nom­i­nee In­grid Melville, say­ing she was un­suit­able.

Ad­dress­ing oth­er is­sues, the area rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Buc­coo/Mt. Pleas­ant An­cil Den­nis said three THA Sec­re­taries - Kelvin Charles, Jo­mo Pitt, and Hay­den Spencer re­signed.

Charles, the for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary, head­ed the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion, and En­er­gy, while Spencer was the Sec­re­tary for Food Pro­duc­tion, Forestry, and Fish­eries. Pitt was Sec­re­tary for Youth Af­fairs and Sports.

Den­nis had asked for the sec­re­taries’ res­ig­na­tions as they did not of­fer them­selves up as can­di­dates in the Jan­u­ary 25 THA elec­tions and are no longer As­sem­bly­men.

Den­nis said the re­main­ing sec­re­taries would han­dle the ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lios.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from Den­nis’ of­fice, he would be re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Food Pro­duc­tion, Forestry, and Fish­eries.

Marslyn Melville-Jack will add the Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion, and En­er­gy, to her ex­ist­ing Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment and Labour port­fo­lio and David­son-Ce­les­tine will take charge of the Youth Af­fairs and Sports Di­vi­sion.

The re­lease said all as­sis­tant sec­re­taries have re­lin­quished their posts.

PDP supporters wait outside the Tobago Assembly Legislature in support of their elected officials last night.

LOYCE VINCENT

PDP crowd out­side THA cham­ber

Mean­while, a crowd of over 100 PDP sup­port­ers gath­ered out­side the THA cham­ber in Scar­bor­ough around 9 pm last night clap­ping and singing gospel songs.

Po­lice had to be called out to en­sure that the pro­ceed­ings re­mained peace­ful.

Duke and the oth­er As­sem­bly­men came out and joined them.

“This strug­gle is a spir­i­tu­al strug­gle. It is a strug­gle of the se­nior and the young peo­ple,” Duke said, in the mid­dle of singing ‘This is the day that the Lord has made’.

He dis­agreed that the so­lu­tion for the THA cri­sis should come from Trinidad, say­ing it is bet­ter for the rep­re­sen­ta­tives to sit down and fix the prob­lem.

“What we are ask­ing for is that this THA re­turn to a place where we could make laws for good gov­er­nance and pub­lic or­der,” he said.

He said they came to the As­sem­bly yes­ter­day with the in­ten­tion of elect­ing a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, on­ly to find that the mat­ter was put off af­ter the votes.

He added, how­ev­er, that by virtue of the PNM putting up a sec­ond can­di­date for the post of pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, the PDP’s can­di­date is elect­ed by de­fault.

Deputy PDP po­lit­i­cal leader, Far­ley Au­gus­tine again urged the PNM to meet with them, say­ing they should be speak­ing with one voice to the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“These con­di­tions are per­fect for us to go down as 12 elect­ed mem­bers and say to Trinida­di­ans who don’t want to give us the right to gov­ern our­selves the way we choose, now is the time to give it to us,” he said.

“When that hap­pens it will be an ide­al time to go back to the polls.

We ain’t fraid to go back to the polls. The num­bers are on our side,” he said.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tives re­turned to the As­sem­bly af­ter ad­dress­ing the crowd.

Duke said they will re­main their un­til the clerk comes back and restarts the meet­ing.

PDP leader Watson Duke speak to members of the media at the Tobago Assembly Legislature yesterday while looking Deputy political leader Farley Augustine and other THA members look on before their sit in in the chamber.

VINDRA GOPAUL BOODAN