Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, is warn­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans to be wary of elec­tion hand­outs, claim­ing she has been in­formed of mon­ey and toys be­ing dis­trib­uted ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

Speak­ing at the PNM’s cam­paign launch on Sat­ur­day night, Beck­les told sup­port­ers the pub­lic should be wary of “gifts” de­signed to in­flu­ence votes.

She said, “They will come to you bear­ing all sorts of gifts. As a mat­ter of fact, I have it from good sources that right now on the port, toys ga­lore. There’s mon­ey ga­lore.”

Beck­les cau­tioned the crowd that these al­leged give­aways are not signs of gen­uine care or long-term de­vel­op­ment for To­ba­go.

She added, “Peo­ple of To­ba­go, I am warn­ing you, be care­ful. Do not come and of­fer me gifts just for elec­tions. Do not let them take you for fools.”

The PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader ar­gued that the is­land has seen this pat­tern be­fore, say­ing many vot­ers are ap­proached dur­ing elec­tions with promis­es, goods and quick in­cen­tives that dis­ap­pear im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to Beck­les, To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment must come from con­sis­tent in­vest­ment and strong gov­er­nance, not short-term in­duce­ments.

She said, “If you want to see To­ba­go ad­vance and de­vel­op, it must be con­sis­tent.”

Beck­les told sup­port­ers that po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents will at­tempt to con­vince vot­ers that the PNM has not de­liv­ered any­thing to To­ba­go, but in­sist­ed that PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions were re­spon­si­ble for ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture across the is­land.

She point­ed to the Scar­bor­ough and Rox­bor­ough hos­pi­tals, the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the fast fer­ries, the Cabo Star, and oth­er long-term projects as ev­i­dence of the PNM’s per­for­mance record.

She al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about shift­ing po­lit­i­cal al­liances, telling the au­di­ence they should pay close at­ten­tion to sud­den uni­ty among ri­vals.

With­out nam­ing in­di­vid­u­als, she said, “Be care­ful, be­cause when it is con­ve­nient, peo­ple mash up. And when it is con­ve­nient, they come back to­geth­er. All be­cause they want to de­stroy the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.”

Last week, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke threw his sup­port be­hind Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty. The sup­port was wel­comed by Au­gus­tine.

Mean­while, Beck­les called on Au­gus­tine to “stay out of PNM busi­ness.” As she be­gan her ad­dress to par­ty sup­port­ers at the cam­paign launch, which saw all the can­di­dates be­ing of­fi­cial­ly re­vealed, Beck­les ad­dressed Au­gus­tine’s crit­i­cism of her lead­er­ship.

She men­tioned a head­line say­ing “Far­ley knocks pret­ty Pen­ny” and said, “But let me just tell Far­ley some­thing, stay out of PNM busi­ness. Stay out of PNM busi­ness.”

Beck­les urged Au­gus­tine to un­der­stand the depth, his­to­ry and re­silience of the move­ment.

She re­mind­ed sup­port­ers that the PNM in To­ba­go is built on decades of lead­er­ship, list­ing names in­clud­ing Orville Lon­don, Kelvin Charles, Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine and oth­ers.

“This is a par­ty that has a sym­bol called the bal­isi­er. If you chop it down, it grows back. If you burn it, it grows back. And we will con­tin­ue as the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment,” she said.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis stressed the par­ty will not par­tic­i­pate in neg­a­tive cam­paign­ing. He told sup­port­ers, “The Chief Sec­re­tary will at­tempt to drag us down to his lev­el, in­to the mud, but you can’t win a fight with pigs in the mud. We will stay above the fray, and we will stay out of the mud.”

Mon­i­tor­ing of THA elec­tions cam­paign

The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour has be­gun the process of mon­i­tor­ing the THA 2026 elec­tion cam­paign to as­sess whether po­lit­i­cal par­ties, can­di­dates and their sup­port­ers com­ply with the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct.

The Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct has been in place since 2014 and calls on all par­tic­i­pants in the elec­tion cam­paign to up­hold the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral process by main­tain­ing high moral prin­ci­ples and eth­i­cal stan­dards while avoid­ing pro­hib­it­ed con­duct.

In a state­ment on Sat­ur­day evening, the coun­cil said mon­i­tor­ing is sched­uled to be­gin to­day, De­cem­ber 15, when a re­con­sti­tut­ed Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour, in­clud­ing two To­bag­o­ni­ans, will be an­nounced in To­ba­go by chair Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath.

Ra­goonath, who is in To­ba­go mon­i­tor­ing the cam­paign en­vi­ron­ment, said on Sat­ur­day evening that he is urg­ing all par­ties to main­tain clean con­duct.

He said, “I am here to re-im­press up­on all the po­lit­i­cal par­ties, their can­di­dates, their mem­bers, to run a clean cam­paign. We have a code of con­duct, and we want to main­tain it. All the par­ties should seek to work with­in those guide­lines.”

Asked whether Den­nis’ de­ci­sion not to re­spond to mud­sling­ing could weak­en the PNM’s po­si­tion, Ra­goonath said, “The mud­sling­ing, yes, he should not re­spond to that. He should not en­gage in mud­sling­ing… once you keep the cam­paign clean and you don’t en­gage in neg­a­tive cam­paign­ing, we have no prob­lem with that.”

TPP po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine could not be reached for com­ment.