A new day—To­ba­go has gone green.

A ma­jor­i­ty of To­bag­o­ni­ans opt­ed for change yes­ter­day when they elect­ed the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) head­ed by Wat­son Duke and Far­ley Au­gus­tine to run their To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly af­fairs un­til 2025.

Pre­lim­i­nary re­sults in­di­cat­ed a PDP mile­stone with a ma­jor­i­ty of To­ba­go’s 15 seats - break­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s 21-year man­age­ment of the THA.

“This is a To­ba­go dream come alive. We start a new day for To­ba­go, we wake up (this morn­ing) re­solved to change,” PDP deputy leader Au­gus­tine in an ad­dress to ju­bi­lant sup­port­ers at 10.45 pm.

Au­gus­tine laud­ed PDP leader Duke - and warned the PNM Gov­ern­ment and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that his par­ty’s vic­to­ry meant that To­ba­go had re­ject­ed bul­ly­ing and oth­er tac­tics.

Au­gus­tine said at that time the PDP was un­cer­tain what was the ex­act num­ber of win­ning seats but it was ap­par­ent the PDP won any­where from 12 seats and up­ward.

“What­ev­er the fi­nal count is (to­day), we’re grate­ful for what­ev­er op­por­tu­ni­ty God has giv­en us,” Au­gus­tine said.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, who lost her seat, con­ced­ed at a sub­dued Shaw Park lo­ca­tion be­fore Au­gus­tine spoke.

She said To­bag­o­ni­ans want­ed change and had vot­ed for the oth­er side.

“I con­grat­u­late the PDP and its lead­er­ship Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine and Wat­son Duke for win­ning. I wish them all the best in the up­com­ing term of the THA,” David­son-Ce­les­tine said.

“We are sad­dened by the sit­u­a­tion but it’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to re­group and do in­tro­spec­tion ... the PNM is still here to rep­re­sent you.”

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley had been in To­ba­go since last Fri­day but wasn’t seen at the lo­ca­tion.

Votes were still be­ing count­ed in sev­er­al ar­eas last night. Up to press time, the mar­gin stood at 12-3 but the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion will an­nounce the of­fi­cial re­sults to­day.

The out­come broke the 6-6 tie be­tween PNM and PDP which re­sult­ed from the Jan­u­ary THA poll. Then, PNM had lost four of its 10 seats to PDP. Yes­ter­day, pre­lim­i­nary re­sults in­di­cat­ed the PNM slid fur­ther be­hind.

Forty-five can­di­dates from five po­lit­i­cal par­ties con­test­ed yes­ter­day’s elec­tions. The PDP and PNM con­test­ed in all 15 elec­toral dis­tricts.

The In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance, led by for­mer PN­Mite Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, con­test­ed in 13 of the 15 – main­ly in south and cen­tral To­ba­go held by PNM. IDA didn’t con­test in the East dis­tricts of Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan and Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle held by PDP.

The Class Ac­tion Re­form Move­ment and Uni­ty of the Peo­ple each field­ed one can­di­date in Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant – the on­ly dis­trict con­test­ed by five can­di­dates.

PDP’s Duke and Au­gus­tine won their seats in Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle and Par­latu­vi­er /L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side re­spec­tive­ly. Pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures in­di­cat­ed PDP al­so re­tained Belle Gar­den, Ma­son Hall-Mo­ri­ah, Bethel/New Grange and oth­er seats.

PDP sup­port­ers be­gan cel­e­brat­ing as ear­ly as 8.30 pm af­ter the PDP showed ear­ly leads in a num­ber of seats. PDP votes in its heart­land East­ern seats crossed the 1,000s by 9.30 pm. By 10 pm, hun­dreds of PDP sup­port­ers in Duke’s Rox­bor­ough seats cel­e­brat­ed so en­er­get­i­cal­ly that ri­ot po­lice had to be called to cau­tion them on so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

PNM won new seats

Pre­lim­i­nary re­sults in­di­cat­ed the PNM won the three new seats which were cre­at­ed by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion to break the 6-6 tie

Those were Dar­rel Spring/Whim (Kelvon Mor­ris), Lam­beau/Low­lands (Ki­no Mcken­zie) and Mt St George/Good­wood (Charles Adams). It was re­port­ed that the PNM’s Marslyn Melville-Jack al­so won in Scar­bor­ough/Mt Grace but that is to be con­firmed by the EBC to­day.

Apart from PNM To­ba­go leader David­son-Ce­les­tine, sev­er­al oth­er PNM can­di­dates who won in Jan­u­ary ap­peared to have lost this time.

In dif­fi­cul­ty for the Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant seat last night was can­di­date An­cil Den­nis (for­mer THA chief sec­re­tary). Den­nis, con­sid­ered one of PNM’s strongest can­di­dates, was the on­ly can­di­date in a five-way fight-up against PDP, IDA, UOTP and CARM can­di­dates.

PNM deputy chair­man Dion Is­sac last night said democ­ra­cy had pre­vailed, the peo­ple had spo­ken and the PNM had learned some hard lessons yes­ter­day.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Huey Cadette, who spoke at 9.30 pm, ad­mit­ted the sit­u­a­tion wasn’t what the PNM had been look­ing for­ward to.

Cadette said it sug­gest­ed the PNM’s strate­gies didn’t work and the par­ty would have to ex­am­ine its mes­sage and slate and what it should have done dif­fer­ent­ly be­tween Jan­u­ary and yes­ter­day. He sug­gest­ed ar­eas to ex­am­ine could be the lev­el of com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween PNM stan­dard-bear­ers and “the ground,” the COVID pan­dem­ic im­pact and how the PNM’s pro­grammes im­pact­ed on peo­ple’s lives.

Cadette said To­ba­go leader David­son-Ce­les­tine had won the lead­er­ship last year with peo­ple’s sup­port. On whether David­son-Ce­les­tine should step down, Cadette said that was “a de­ci­sion she would have to make for her­self.”

The new THA is ex­pect­ed to be sworn in on Thurs­day.

High vot­er turnout

A to­tal of 51, 383 – in­clud­ing 932 spe­cial elec­tors – were el­i­gi­ble to vote at 67 polling di­vi­sions.

The EBC didn’t give an es­ti­mat­ed vot­er turnout last night, but the PNM, PDP and IDA all con­curred that there had been a high vot­er turnout.

In the Jan­u­ary THA elec­tion, there were slight­ly less el­i­gi­ble vot­ers 51,061. In that elec­tion in­volv­ing the PNM, PDP and two in­de­pen­dents, on­ly 26,474 votes were re­ceived from 48.65 per cent of the elec­torate – PNM had ob­tained 13,289 votes, PDP 12,798 and oth­ers 1.134 per cent.