Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that he would seek to pe­nalise the res­i­dents of To­ba­go in light of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) over­whelm­ing 14-1 loss in Mon­day’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

In his vic­to­ry speech on Mon­day night, deputy PDP leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine called for a cor­dial re­la­tion­ship with the Prime Min­is­ter. Yes­ter­day, Row­ley said de­spite the loss, he re­spect­ed the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process of an elec­tion.

“Notwith­stand­ing at­tempts to mis­lead, there is proof that in this coun­try democ­ra­cy is very much alive and the will of the peo­ple is scrupu­lous­ly re­spect­ed,” the PM said.

In an ear­li­er me­dia state­ment, Row­ley said the To­ba­go elec­tion was free and fair and promised to con­tin­ue to work for the bet­ter­ment of the is­land.

“On this oc­ca­sion when we have been re­placed, even in the dis­ap­point­ment, we com­mit to con­tin­ue to be of ser­vice to all the peo­ple of To­ba­go, re­main res­olute in our sup­port of the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the is­land and the im­prove­ment on the qual­i­ty of life for all To­bag­o­ni­ans,” Row­ley said.

“The re­sults have clear­ly in­di­cat­ed that the peo­ple of To­ba­go, on this oc­ca­sion, have opt­ed for change. The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, hav­ing man­aged the af­fairs of To­ba­go for 21 years, un­bro­ken, must thank the peo­ple of To­ba­go for the many oc­ca­sions when you would have en­trust­ed us with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of your care, at­ten­tion and de­vel­op­ment,” Row­ley added.

Row­ley said that the var­i­ous cam­paigns held through­out the is­land in the build-up to the elec­tion laid out clear po­si­tions to the peo­ple. He said that it was now up to the PDP to fol­low through on its promis­es.

“The PNM and the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to re­spect the wish­es of the peo­ple of To­ba­go and will do all that is with­in its ca­pac­i­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that To­ba­go pro­gress­es with­in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as re­quired by the ex­ist­ing laws and our com­mon pur­suit of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment,” he said.

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil, Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, al­so promised to “re­dou­ble ef­forts” in the wake of the loss.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, David­son-Ce­les­tine said To­ba­go had called on the PNM to be bet­ter and she would lis­ten.

“The peo­ple of To­ba­go have spo­ken. To­bag­o­ni­ans have giv­en a man­date to the PDP and for this we con­grat­u­late them. To­bag­o­ni­ans have al­so said to us that we need to be bet­ter and we will,” she said.

She al­so took the time to thank all the PNM sup­port­ers and said she has learned from those who sup­port­ed the par­ty and from those who did not.

Dur­ing his vic­to­ry speech in Spey­side on Mon­day, Au­gus­tine said the PDP win was al­so ev­i­dence of strong re­jec­tion of the PNM.

Yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James agreed. He said the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil lost the elec­tion be­cause of “a bul­ly of a PM.”

James said the PNM had re­cy­cled “old, tired PNM pol­i­tics to at­tract the elec­torate.”

How­ev­er, he said the elec­torate did not re­spond to the “de­mon­i­sa­tion of Far­ley and Wat­son who have nev­er held of­fice.”

He opined that the PNM used “op­por­tunis­tic in­duce­ments on the eve of the elec­tions.” He al­so said the PNM erred with the de­fer­ral of the au­ton­o­my leg­is­la­tion and took the sup­port of the elec­torate for grant­ed.

The PDP, with the ma­jor­i­ty, would re­main large­ly un­chal­lenged at the THA and James said this meant that the elec­torate had giv­en one par­ty all the gov­er­nance and man­age­ment rights to the re­sources of the is­land.

“But ex­pec­ta­tions from self and the elec­tors could be­come quite dif­fi­cult to sat­is­fy,” James said.

He said these were un­prece­dent­ed times in terms of checks and bal­ances at the THA with a PDP ma­jor­i­ty.

“Apart from a vig­i­lant and sup­port­ive elec­torate, there are no checks and bal­ances. These would have to be cre­at­ed on an as-need­ed ba­sis,” he said. —Renu­ka Singh