Chester Sam­bra­no

To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber chair­man Mar­tin George has knocked the launch of the process to cre­ate To­ba­go’s newest po­lit­i­cal par­ty, which re­sult­ed in a con­sul­ta­tion with no de­ci­sion be­ing tak­en, not even on a name.

“The THA (To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly) In­de­pen­dents need to get their act to­geth­er and or­gan­ise a prop­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty and stop tak­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go for grant­ed,” George said yes­ter­day.

George ex­pressed con­cern that the event at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex on Tues­day evening was first tout­ed as the launch of a new par­ty be­ing led by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, but was then con­vert­ed in­to a dis­cus­sion with sup­port­ers on choos­ing a name, sym­bol, colour and con­sti­tu­tion.

“It does not ex­act­ly send the right sig­nals and it does not ex­act­ly in­spire con­fi­dence in To­bag­o­ni­ans that the in­de­pen­dents re­al­ly at this stage seem to know what they are do­ing. It is ei­ther you are launch­ing a po­lit­i­cal par­ty or you are not,” he said.

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) leader and for­mer THA pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, Dr Denise Tsoiafatt An­gus, had the same im­pres­sion.

“You get the idea that there is a lot of emo­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing rather than clear-cut da­ta-dri­ven de­ci­sion-mak­ing in the ex­er­cise and that, of course, is a cause for con­cern,” she said.

But for­mer Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Ash­worth Jack saw things a dif­fer­ent way.

Jack, who at­tend­ed the paid par­ty launch, told Guardian Me­dia there had been sev­er­al dis­cus­sions tak­ing place to cre­ate the par­ty since the group of 16 THA mem­bers part­ed ways with Wat­son Duke’s Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots in De­cem­ber 2022.

He al­so said he is will­ing to work with the new par­ty when it is formed, as he has al­ways had a good re­la­tion­ship with some of the mem­bers.

“I am a per­son who feels very pas­sion­ate about To­ba­go and I will do what is nec­es­sary if I think it will fur­ther the course of To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment...I am open (to work­ing with them), very, very open,” he said.

But while the process be­ing em­ployed by the in­de­pen­dents has been crit­i­cised by some, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath had no is­sue with it.

“The mere fact that they did go the route of sim­ply try­ing to get peo­ple to be part and par­cel of the process, that is the right thing,” he said.

He said hav­ing peo­ple on the ground could work in help­ing them mo­bilise to get oth­er peo­ple to buy in­to the par­ty. How­ev­er, Ra­goonath felt charg­ing a fee ($325) for at­ten­dance was prob­a­bly wrong.

He point­ed out that he could not say at this point whether the for­ma­tion of a new par­ty would mean the end of the PDP.

Mean­while, THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris wants Au­gus­tine to ex­plain what hap­pens to the so­cial con­tract he and his mem­bers signed with the peo­ple of To­ba­go when they won the elec­tions as PDP mem­bers.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Mor­ris said he had no is­sue with Au­gus­tine and oth­ers form­ing a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty, but he said they must be hon­est with the peo­ple, as he con­sid­ered their ac­tions un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic.

But even as the steps are be­ing tak­en to move ahead with the new en­ti­ty, some To­bag­o­ni­ans had their say on the de­vel­op­ment.

Jat­i­fa Walk­er said, “I am con­fused, I don’t know what go­ing on.”

Keron Clarke added, “I find he (Au­gus­tine) moved dis­hon­est with the hand that feed him. You don’t bite the hands that feed you.”

Kim Moses not­ed, “We were sup­port­ing them all the time and to see that what go­ing on, they let me down, plen­ty.”

Mean­while, Lisa Mul­care said, “I feel it is a nice choice for Far­ley, who vex lose.”

The mass res­ig­na­tions from the PDP fol­lowed weeks of pub­lic dis­agree­ments be­tween po­lit­i­cal leader Duke and his then-deputy Au­gus­tine over the sup­posed aban­don­ment of the Rox­bor­ough Folk Group in New York.

Duke stripped Au­gus­tine and Dr Faith B Yis­rael of their po­si­tions as deputies and lat­er re­signed his po­si­tion as Deputy THA Chief Sec­re­tary.

Duke has said the new par­ty, when formed, will be re­ject­ed by To­ba­go.