Smooth voting in Tobago despite heated campaign

Akash Sama­roo &

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Elec­tion Day in To­ba­go con­clud­ed peace­ful­ly yes­ter­day, with vot­ers and can­di­dates across the is­land de­scrib­ing the process as smooth and or­der­ly, de­spite a tense cam­paign pe­ri­od.

In To­ba­go West, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date An­cil Den­nis said his vot­ing ex­pe­ri­ence went with­out dif­fi­cul­ty and re­port­ed no ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

“Very smooth, as usu­al. I’ve nev­er had any is­sues vot­ing in my life,” Den­nis said af­ter vot­ing.

Den­nis was seen greet­ing a for­mer col­league out­side the polling sta­tion and said there was no an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween can­di­dates.

Ad­dress­ing height­ened emo­tions dis­played dur­ing the cam­paign, Den­nis urged re­straint and uni­ty af­ter polls closed.

“Af­ter this cam­paign process and the elec­tion process to­day, we have four years to live to­geth­er and to in­ter­act with each oth­er,” he said.

“We are on­ly 60,000 and we are def­i­nite­ly too small for that.”

He praised the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion, stat­ing, “I have no ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties to­day. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the EBC thus far and con­grat­u­la­tions to the peo­ple of To­ba­go for con­duct­ing our­selves to­day so far with dig­ni­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.”

He planned to spend the re­main­der of the day en­cour­ag­ing sup­port­ers to vote.

“The last time some per­sons felt I al­ready had it in the bag, and I lost by two votes,” Den­nis said.

For­mer PNM mem­ber Keigon De­noon, who crossed over to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) to con­test the dis­trict against Den­nis, al­so de­scribed the vot­ing process as smooth.

“The process was very smooth,” De­noon said. “You were in and out in less than five min­utes.”

De­noon said there was no per­son­al con­flict be­tween him­self and Den­nis, de­spite con­test­ing the same seat. “Mr Den­nis and I are cor­dial. There’s no an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween us,” he said. “Pol­i­tics is not go­ing to di­vide us.” He said his team re­mained ac­tive through­out the day and re­port­ed no is­sues from polling agents. “No, no ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties,” De­noon said.

In­de­pen­dent De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus con­firmed she did not vote, ex­plain­ing that there was no IDA can­di­date in her dis­trict and that she did not sup­port the philoso­phies of the two par­ties con­test­ing the seat. “There is no IDA can­di­date in this area, and I did not feel that any of the two par­ties would be worth my vote to vote for any of them,” she said.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said her de­ci­sion was based on prin­ci­ple. “I stand for some­thing and refuse to fall for any­thing,” she said. She re­port­ed no com­plaints or dis­crep­an­cies dur­ing the day and said the par­ty fo­cused its lim­it­ed re­sources on mon­i­tor­ing the count. “We felt that it was bet­ter use of our time to put our agents in­to the count this evening where it mat­ters,” she said.

Vot­ers across To­ba­go de­scribed the process as ef­fi­cient. Dave Parisian said, “The process was good, easy, smooth.” A cou­ple, Scott and Mrs Paris-Scott, said vot­ing took about five min­utes and re­port­ed no is­sues. Many res­i­dents de­scribed the poll as more mean­ing­ful than the gen­er­al elec­tion, with sev­er­al say­ing they have con­sis­tent­ly vot­ed for more than two decades.

While To­ba­go West had seen height­ened ten­sion in the lead-up, in­clud­ing claims that the TPP cam­paigned too close to a polling sta­tion in Buc­coo, these dis­putes did not af­fect the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process. Many elec­tors de­scribed the day as “very good … very nice … very smooth.”

De­spite weeks of po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry, can­di­dates paused to­day not to clash, but to em­brace. Den­nis re­mind­ed vot­ers that pol­i­tics ends at the bal­lot. “As I have been say­ing dur­ing the cam­paign, adults are free to make whichev­er de­ci­sions they choose to make ... it is my in­ten­tion to serve all, notwith­stand­ing any par­ty colours.”

Sun­day’s con­fronta­tion be­tween TPP and PNM sup­port­ers still cast a shad­ow over the day, but a heavy po­lice pres­ence and stern warn­ings helped main­tain calm.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who was on the is­land, did not com­ment on that in­ci­dent. “I would on­ly like to stick to to­day’s process at this point in time and tell you that it is smooth, and any­thing else we are deal­ing with in terms of re­ports that are made to the po­lice, we will have an in­ves­tiga­tive process and af­ter that we will come back to the me­dia,” he said.

In a sub­se­quent state­ment, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed that vot­ing con­clud­ed peace­ful­ly. Of­fi­cers re­mained strate­gi­cal­ly de­ployed across polling di­vi­sions, en­sur­ing pub­lic safe­ty and a smooth process through­out the day. The Ser­vice thanked the pub­lic for their co­op­er­a­tion and urged cit­i­zens to con­tin­ue act­ing re­spon­si­bly and ob­serv­ing the law as the na­tion tran­si­tions in­to the post-elec­tion pe­ri­od.

Mean­while, TPP leader and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine told re­porters he ex­pect­ed a strong show­ing. “Fif­teen-nil. If things con­tin­ue as they are now, we should have a very good night tonight (Mon­day),” he said. Au­gus­tine al­so dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that mon­ey was be­ing of­fered for votes and dis­tanced him­self from claims in­volv­ing for­mer po­lit­i­cal part­ner Wat­son Duke. “Mr Duke is a rel­a­tive­ly cheap man. You are not go­ing to spend any mon­ey on him. He’s pret­ty cheap,” Au­gus­tine said.