ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go po­lice are ex­pect­ed to sum­mon all po­lit­i­cal par­ty lead­ers on the is­land to a meet­ing this week, fol­low­ing clash­es be­tween can­di­dates, sup­port­ers and of­fi­cers on Nom­i­na­tion Day, last Fri­day. 

Dur­ing one of the al­ter­ca­tions, a par­ty sup­port­er claimed she was choked while an­oth­er claimed was first pro­voked. 

A se­nior of­fi­cer, who was on du­ty at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Sig­nal Hill last evening, when asked about the con­duct of sup­port­ers dur­ing the Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign told Guardian Me­dia that a meet­ing will be called to fo­cus on safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, the be­hav­iour of sup­port­ers, and mea­sures to pre­vent al­ter­ca­tions and po­lit­i­cal provo­ca­tion dur­ing the cam­paign sea­son.

One se­nior of­fi­cer said the goal is to keep the peace and en­sure re­spon­si­ble con­duct on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form. The of­fi­cers said the aim is to en­cour­age po­lit­i­cal lead­ers not to in­cite vi­o­lence on their plat­forms, and for sup­port­ers not to get car­ried away in this sea­son.

The meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to take place be­fore the end of this week.

On Nom­i­na­tion Day, a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) sup­port­er walked up to a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment group of sup­port­ers while mak­ing a so­cial me­dia video. 

The sup­port­er claimed she was pro­voked and promised to seek le­gal re­dress for as­sault. 

Po­lice had to step in.

Ten­sions con­tin­ued to run high at the To­ba­go West nom­i­na­tion cen­tre at Calder Hall Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty.

This time, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke was stopped by po­lice while seek­ing to sub­mit his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers. He was told he could not en­ter the com­pound be­cause an­oth­er can­di­date was there.

Duke, though, re­fused to leave the com­pound. He said there was no rea­son for him to be ar­rest­ed.

As the sit­u­a­tion quelled, an­oth­er fight brewed out­side—be­tween TPP and PDP sup­port­ers. 

The ten­sion es­ca­lat­ed when TPP deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Faith Breb­nor stepped in. She asked her sup­port­ers to calm down.

De­spite the ten­sions, all can­di­dates suc­cess­ful­ly filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.