Blue Wash! Farley’s TPP delivers a clean sweep as voters reject PNM for 2nd straight election

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s prophe­cy was ful­filled last night, as a “Blue” To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) “Wave” yes­ter­day washed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) com­plete­ly out of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

This was the out­come of yes­ter­day’s THA elec­tion in which the TPP ex­e­cut­ed a 15-0 clean sweep of the poll, where pre­lim­i­nary re­sults showed all the PNM can­di­dates lost—in­clud­ing for­mer sole PNM as­sem­bly­man Kelvon Mor­ris.

To gain con­trol of the THA, a par­ty had to win eight of the 15 THA seats.

TPP chair­man Ann Natasha Sec­ond de­clared vic­to­ry for the par­ty by 9.06 pm, when the TPP was lead­ing re­sults in eight to 12 seats—and by 10 pm, the par­ty de­clared a 15-0 vic­to­ry.

“This is the sec­ond time in the last 45 years a po­lit­i­cal par­ty has won all the THA seats!” Au­gus­tine de­clared a full vic­to­ry, as he ad­dressed joy­ous sup­port­ers dur­ing his vic­to­ry speech at the Scar­bor­ough Es­planade at 11 pm.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis con­ced­ed de­feat at 10 pm.

He said, “We have lost the elec­tion. I don’t know by how many seats or mar­gins, but we’ve lost ... Fol­low­ing the re­sults, I will be step­ping aside as leader ...”

Den­nis, who lost his bid for the Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant seat, spoke at the PNM’s To­ba­go head­quar­ters, where the mood was low. Den­nis said there will be a re­count for the Dar­rell Spring/Whim seat, which Mor­ris lost by 17 votes.

The In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA), led by Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, did not win any of the 11 seats it con­test­ed.

The Uni­ty of the Peo­ple, led by Nick­o­cy Phillips, which con­test­ed in Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant alone, lost there.

Ac­cord­ing to the pre­lim­i­nary num­bers, the TPP will be in com­plete con­trol of the up­com­ing 2026/2030 ses­sion of the THA.

The TPP’s vic­to­ry was hailed by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment mem­bers, in­clud­ing Bar­ry Padarath and Phillip Alexan­der.

Forty-two can­di­dates from four par­ties par­tic­i­pat­ed in yes­ter­day’s elec­tion.

The TPP and PNM were the on­ly par­ties con­test­ing all 15 seats.

It was a three-way fight in 11 seats among TPP, PNM and IDA and a two-way TPP/PNM fight in four seats where the IDA didn’t con­test. There was a four-way fight on­ly in Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant, where the TPP, PNM, IDA and UOTP con­test­ed.

In yes­ter­day’s elec­tion, 52,857 peo­ple were el­i­gi­ble to vote. The es­ti­mat­ed turnout was said to be ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 per cent.

For the 2021 THA elec­tion, which the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots—to which Au­gus­tine had be­longed—won 14-1, the elec­torate was 51,383. The vot­er turnout then was 56.97 per cent.

A trend de­vel­oped ear­ly, with pre­lim­i­nary re­sults from 8 pm show­ing the TPP lead­ing re­sults in six seats and PNM in two. The TPP’s num­bers lat­er picked up, but the PNM’s did not.

Among those who re­tained seats in the TPP were par­ty leader Au­gus­tine (Par­latu­vi­er/L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side), deputy leader Dr Faith Breb­nor (Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan) and Ian Pol­lard (Ma­son Hall North/Mo­ri­ah).

Pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures showed for­mer PNM To­ba­go West chair­man Keignon De­noon, who con­test­ed Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant for the TPP, de­feat­ing To­ba­go PNM leader Den­nis. Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant was the on­ly seat where there was a four-way fight.

The TPP al­so won the two seats where bound­ary changes were im­ple­ment­ed and where the names of the seats were changed to Ma­son Hall North/Mo­ri­ah and Ma­son Hall South/Bagatelle.

Ma­son Hall North/Mo­ri­ah and Bethel/New Grange were al­so the two dis­tricts with the high­est elec­torate, each with 3,924. Both were won by the TPP, ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures.

The dis­trict with the low­est elec­torate was Bon Ac­cord/Crown Point, with an elec­torate of 3,159. The TPP al­so led there.

PNM’s Mor­ris ini­tial­ly led fig­ures for the Dar­rel Spring/Whim seat he’d won in 2021. How­ev­er, TPP can­di­date Ricky Joe­field even­tu­al­ly over­took him and won.

Last night’s TPP vic­to­ry ful­filled par­ty leader Au­gus­tine’s prophe­cy that the ar­rival of the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny ves­sel the same week as the THA elec­tion had sig­nalled that a “blue (TPP) wave” was com­ing in the elec­tion. The TPP’s colour is blue and its sym­bol is an an­chor.

The first wave came with the 2021 THA elec­tion, when the PDP, led by Wat­son Duke, rout­ed the PNM from 21 years of con­trol of the THA. The PDP won an un­prece­dent­ed 14 of the 15 THA seats then. The PNM’s Mor­ris, who won the Dar­rel Spring/Whim seat. be­came the lone PNM as­sem­bly­man.

Au­gus­tine, who be­came THA’s fifth Chief Sec­re­tary, was then PDP deputy leader. He lat­er fell out with Duke in 2022. Au­gus­tine and the oth­er 12 PDP mem­bers of the THA left the PDP.

Au­gus­tine formed the TPP in Au­gust 2023. Last De­cem­ber, Duke said he’d set aside dif­fer­ences with Au­gus­tine and would sup­port TPP in the poll.

Last night, among peo­ple who took to so­cial me­dia to com­ment on the TPP win, Duke said, “... The elec­torate re­spond­ed with clar­i­ty and re­solve, de­liv­er­ing an un­equiv­o­cal man­date to TPP, a move­ment root­ed in To­ba­go’s so­cial fab­ric and po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions.”

TPP won the 4 seats IDA left for PNM to con­test.

Lines were seen at polling sta­tions yes­ter­day morn­ing, with a slow­ing down of num­bers lat­er on.

Elec­tion day pro­ceed­ings were said to be peace­ful by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

At 1.30 pm yes­ter­day, TPP deputy leader Dr Faith Breb­nor said the par­ty had en­coun­tered no prob­lems up to then (See pages 6, 7 and 8).

“The turnout is de­cent, some of the younger ones are wait­ing to come out a lit­tle lat­er.”

PNM’s Mor­ris said at 1.30 pm that he was in­ves­ti­gat­ing two in­stances of an elec­tor with valid TT ID be­ing un­able to vote due to an Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) dis­crep­an­cy. Just af­ter 3 pm, PNM of­fi­cials said vot­ing was slow.

At 4.30 pm, Dr Tsoiafatt-An­gus said the IDA didn’t have any is­sues. She said the vot­er turnout was a bit slow across the board, and over­all up to then, it had looked like a very low turnout.

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said she didn’t vote in the Ply­mouth/Black Rock area where she was list­ed to, as the IDA didn’t field a can­di­date there. Tsoiafatt-An­gus said the IDA had con­test­ed in 11 dis­tricts and left four seats for the Op­po­si­tion to con­test: Ply­mouth/Black Rock, Lam­beau/Low­lands, Mt St George/Good­wood and Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle. The TPP won these ar­eas.