Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

The chances of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mak­ing a po­lit­i­cal come­back in To­ba­go is high­ly un­like­ly ac­cord­ing to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith B. Yis­rael.

The PNM led the THA for an un­bro­ken 21 years be­fore its 14-1 de­feat to the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) in the De­cem­ber 6, 2021, THA elec­tions.

Af­ter a pub­lic feud in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, in which the PDP Leader Wat­son Duke crit­i­cised the THA Ex­ec­u­tive for not tak­ing care of Rox­bor­ough folk dancers in New York, he re­moved THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, B. Yis­rael and Ali­cia Roberts-Pat­ter­son as deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of the par­ty.

De­spite the PDP’s split, B. Yis­rael is not wor­ried about a po­ten­tial PNM resur­gence in To­ba­go.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian and CNC3 last week, B. Yis­rael said they are weigh­ing their op­tions which in­clude the pos­si­bil­i­ty of form­ing a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty. She said Au­gus­tine was eval­u­at­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty.

“This in­cludes every­one on the THA Ex­ec­u­tive in­clud­ing Mr Far­ley Au­gus­tine. We are ex­plor­ing all op­tions which in­clude a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty. That is why we are speak­ing to our sup­port­ers on the ground to see which di­rec­tion is best,” B. Yis­rael said.

“The peo­ple of To­ba­go were very clear in their de­ci­sion by vot­ing against the PNM in De­cem­ber 2021, so we know that the peo­ple of To­ba­go are not hap­py with that type of gov­er­nance the PNM has pro­vid­ed over the past 21 years. We ex­pect To­bag­o­ni­ans to con­tin­ue to be wise.”

Farley Augustine

THA

B. Yis­rael added that if a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty is formed it will be more than a To­ba­go par­ty, it will be a na­tion­al par­ty.

“It will be for elec­tions in Trinidad and al­so To­ba­go...in­clud­ing gen­er­al elec­tion and THA elec­tions so the idea would be to con­test elec­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go and what­ev­er is com­ing up.”

The new Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary said she re­mains a mem­ber of the PDP un­til a de­ci­sion is tak­en by ei­ther her or the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive.

Oth­er as­sem­bly­men are al­ready pub­licly ex­press­ing sup­port for Au­gus­tine.

THA as­sem­bly­man Pas­tor Ter­ance Baynes has al­ready com­posed a ca­lyp­so, tak­ing the rhythm from a pop­u­lar song by ca­lyp­son­ian Baron (Tim­o­thy Watkins), in sup­port of Au­gus­tine.

“He will build this land, I feel­ing it…in the coun­try and in the city, the peo­ple want Far­ley to lead we,” are some of the lyrics in the song which is be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia.

Mean­while, when Duke was nom­i­nat­ed to be the THA’s Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary by the lone PNM As­sem­bly­man Kelvon Mor­ris last week this “raised eye­brows” in the pub­lic do­main that “the PNM may have had a hand in the PDP di­vi­sions.”

PDP leader Watson Duke.

VINDRA GOPAUL-BOODAN

When asked if she thinks the PNM has a di­rect hand in the PDP’s frac­ture, she de­clined to com­ment.

“I can­not com­ment on if they are re­spon­si­ble or not.”

Ac­cord­ing to news re­ports last week, Au­gus­tine wore a suit that Duke bought for him as a gift, and he al­so called on Duke to re­turn home to the peo­ple of Rox­bor­ough as they love him.

“Broth­er Duke, I know there will come a day when I would have to res­cue you be­cause Port-of-Spain does not love you as much as To­ba­go loves you,” he said in the THA while re­veal­ing de­tails of an au­dit re­port of de­vel­op­men­tal pro­grammes car­ried out un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion in the THA.

It stirred de­bate on so­cial me­dia about whether the two would even­tu­al­ly rec­on­cile. How­ev­er, by Fri­day evening, Au­gus­tine had sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Duke for defama­tion aris­ing from a press con­fer­ence on Sep­tem­ber 15 at the PDP’s of­fice in Barataria.

Lat­er that day, in a Face­book post, Duke was send­ing kiss­es to Au­gus­tine and said that he loved him and the team.

PNM needs the 2 To­ba­go seats–Ghany

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists are al­ready dis­cussing how the PDP’s in­ter­nal di­vi­sions could im­pact the up­com­ing elec­tions.

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist and Sun­day Guardian colum­nist Prof Hamid Ghany told the Sun­day Guardian that the PNM needs to win the two To­ba­go seats to win the next gen­er­al elec­tion in 2025.

“The two seats in To­ba­go are vi­tal to the PNM’s na­tion­al strat­e­gy. With­out those two seats, they are vul­ner­a­ble. At the mo­ment in Trinidad, the PNM has 20 seats which are in­suf­fi­cient to cap­ture state pow­er.”

Ghany al­so point­ed out that Duke was nom­i­nat­ed to be the THA’s Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary by the lone PNM As­sem­bly­man Kelvon Mor­ris which “raised eye­brows” that “the PNM may have had a hand in the PDP di­vi­sions”.

Al­though, ac­cord­ing to news re­ports last week, Mor­ris pub­licly said he re­gret­ted nom­i­nat­ing Duke for the po­si­tion.

“The con­tretemps be­tween Mr Duke and Mr Au­gus­tine seems to have calmed down af­ter the elec­tion of Dr Faith B. Yis­rael as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. The fact that Duke was nom­i­nat­ed by the PNM Mi­nor­i­ty Leader raised many eye­brows and led many peo­ple to think that the PNM had a con­nec­tion to the con­tro­ver­sy.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the fact that Mr Duke did not de­cline the nom­i­na­tion raised ques­tions about why he wrote a let­ter of res­ig­na­tion the week be­fore, re­gard­less of the ad­dressee on the let­ter.”

Ghany al­so said that Au­gus­tine and his PDP col­leagues in the THA have to think care­ful­ly about their fu­ture and their next move.

“With Duke claim­ing own­er­ship of the PDP, it is un­like­ly that he will field any of them as can­di­dates in any fu­ture elec­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the PDP brand may have dam­aged To­ba­go (as well as Trinidad) af­ter the con­tro­ver­sies of the last cou­ple of weeks. This may work to the ad­van­tage of the PNM in To­ba­go as many in­de­pen­dent-mind­ed vot­ers may opt to stay at home and not vote for the PDP, while it may di­min­ish the at­trac­tive­ness of the PDP as a vote split­ter in Trinidad which would not suit the PNM.”

PNM will try to cap­i­talise on PDP in­sta­bil­i­ty–Ra­goonath

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath told the Sun­day Guardian that the PNM would try to max­imise the sug­ges­tion that the PDP could not main­tain the par­ty’s sta­bil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, he added that Duke could be left out in the cold if the THA as­sem­bly­men and women give their sup­port to Au­gus­tine.

“The To­ba­go pop­u­la­tion was asked to vote for a new THA on the ba­sis that it would be head­ed by Mr Au­gus­tine and not Mr Duke. I am of the opin­ion that had Mr Duke gone ahead and sought to be the po­lit­i­cal leader as well as THA Chief Sec­re­tary he would not have got­ten that type of sup­port. A lot of peo­ple see him as a loose canon and peo­ple would not have sup­port­ed him.”

Ra­goonath al­so point­ed out that with­out Duke in the THA ex­ec­u­tive, Au­gus­tine and oth­er mem­bers can con­sol­i­date their po­si­tion and form an­oth­er par­ty which would be in a good po­si­tion to chal­lenge the PNM.

“The ball is in the court of the PDP ex­ec­u­tive in that if they want to main­tain their links with the THA and en­sure that the elect­ed as­sem­bly­men do not form an­oth­er par­ty. I don’t think that the mem­ber­ship of the THA ex­ec­u­tive will with­draw from the PDP as or­di­nary mem­bers. If they re­move them and tell them they are no longer mem­bers of the par­ty then they will have no oth­er op­tion but to form an­oth­er par­ty,” he added.

Ra­goonath does not be­lieve that Duke is the em­bod­i­ment of the PDP. In fact, he thinks that it is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that Duke could be re­placed as the PDP’s leader.

“Wat­son Duke will like to be­lieve that he is the PDP and the PDP is Wat­son Duke. The elec­torate in To­ba­go may not see it that way. The elec­torate in To­ba­go may very well see the PDP as be­ing that en­ti­ty that is not with Wat­son Duke at the helm but rather Far­ley Au­gus­tine at the helm. As that’s who they vot­ed for in the THA elec­tions. If Au­gus­tine and the THA ex­ec­u­tive re­main in the PDP and there’s an­oth­er elec­tion for the lead­er­ship, he could very well take over the par­ty. That is some­thing we have to wait and see.”

Ra­gooonath said that the PNM could win the next gen­er­al elec­tion with­out the two To­ba­go seats, but that any­thing is pos­si­ble.

“The gen­er­al elec­tion is still three years away. The next THA elec­tion is four years away. So the PDP and Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his ex­ec­u­tive still have the time to re­build what­ev­er base they have. In the next year and a half, if Au­gus­tine and his ex­ec­u­tive can show the peo­ple that un­der their ad­min­is­tra­tion things could be bet­ter for To­ba­go, there’s the like­li­hood that with­out Wat­son Duke they can run for To­ba­go and keep To­ba­go with­in the hands of the PDP or what­ev­er en­ti­ty they will call them­selves.”