Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go po­lit­i­cal par­ties says the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can count them out of its new po­lit­i­cal coali­tion.

The UNC on Thurs­day met with lead­ers of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) and Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (MND), as well as ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union (TI­WU), Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers’ Union (TTP­WU) and the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (FSA). It an­nounced the coali­tion af­ter­wards, while HOPE leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith has al­so in­di­cat­ed he’s will­ing to hold talks on the is­sue soon.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty mem­ber Faith B Yis­rael told Guardian Me­dia the al­liance is ir­rel­e­vant to the par­ty’s goals. She said the fo­cus re­mains on win­ning To­ba­go’s two par­lia­men­tary seats—To­ba­go East and West—which they plan to use as lever­age for the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment.

So, for now, B Yis­rael said they are not con­cerned with po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vres in Trinidad. She said the TPP’s strat­e­gy is root­ed sole­ly in ad­vanc­ing To­ba­go’s agen­da.

“The TPP isn’t con­cern­ing it­self with what’s hap­pen­ing in Trinidad! As the po­lit­i­cal leader (Far­ley Au­gus­tine) has stat­ed pub­licly, we are laser-fo­cused on win­ning the two To­ba­go seats, so that we can use them to bar­gain on be­half of To­ba­go.”

Mean­while, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke ar­gued that al­liances in Trinidad and To­ba­go of­ten fail, even when vic­to­ri­ous, be­cause of gov­er­nance chal­lenges. And so, he has no in­ten­tion to sup­port or join any al­liance, as tempt­ing as they seem.

How­ev­er, if his plan to be­come king­mak­er suc­ceeds, he’s open for talks.

Duke said, “So we would wait un­til the elec­tion bal­lots are checked, and hav­ing won those two seats, we will be will­ing to break the dead­lock, as we per­ceive a dead­lock, with­out en­ter­ing that and ne­go­ti­ate so that To­ba­go does not find it­self in the same po­si­tion. We are will­ing to ne­go­ti­ate and work with a team from a strong po­si­tion, that en­sures a vic­to­ry for To­ba­go and a vic­to­ry for Trinidad.”

Asked to com­ment on the PSA’s move to back the UNC, Duke—a for­mer PSA pres­i­dent— said he would com­ment af­ter hear­ing a state­ment from PSA leader Leroy Bap­tiste.

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus al­so said her par­ty has no in­ter­est in the union. She said she has tak­en a firm stance against align­ing with po­lit­i­cal coali­tions in­volv­ing Trinidad-based par­ties. Like B Yis­rael, Tsoiafatt-An­gus al­so point­ed out that such part­ner­ships of­ten fail to ad­dress To­ba­go’s unique needs.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said, “Yes, we have heard of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties in Trinidad join­ing with each oth­er. But for us, join­ing with any par­ty is based on vi­sion and pur­pose. The idea is a vi­sion for lib­er­at­ing the com­mu­ni­ties in To­ba­go, and that is not one we have ob­served in any of the oth­er en­ti­ties.”

She ad­mit­ted that no To­ba­go-based par­ty had ap­proached her group for an al­liance. How­ev­er, she claimed that she’s no­ticed that some To­ba­go par­ties have cho­sen to align with Trinidad coali­tions.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus fur­ther said she is scep­ti­cal about the ef­fec­tive­ness of such al­liances, say­ing, “The part­ner­ship strat­e­gy has been used through­out the years to get in­to of­fice but has not brought the ben­e­fits that are crit­i­cal to To­ba­go. As such, our rep­re­sen­ta­tives, soon to be par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, will not be muz­zled by any align­ment.”

She pledged that her team would pri­ori­tise To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests and main­tain in­de­pen­dence in Par­lia­ment. “They will be com­mit­ted to speak­ing freely on any and all mat­ters re­lat­ed to To­ba­go through­out their term in of­fice. Fi­nal­ly, they will be the true rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”