Augustine tells Trinidad bloggers to stay out Tobago politics

Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine has told what he de­scribed as “paid blog­gers from Trinidad” to keep their “stink­ing opin­ion” and in­flu­ence in Beetham and Laven­tille, say­ing To­ba­go does not want it and will de­cide for it­self.Au­gus­tine made the com­ments while speak­ing at a TPP po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Mt St George on Sun­day night.

“And I want to say to all their paid blog­gers from Trinidad, we don’t care what you say,” Au­gus­tine said. “No Trinidad blog­ger will de­ter­mine how we vote. To­bag­o­ni­ans are smart enough. We don’t need an in­flu­ence.”

He con­tin­ued: “Keep your in­flu­ence down there for Laven­tille and Beetham. But this is To­ba­go, and To­ba­go for To­bag­o­ni­ans. We will de­cide for our­selves. Keep your stink­ing opin­ion to your­self. We don’t care about your opin­ion.”

Au­gus­tine re­peat­ed the point lat­er in his ad­dress.

“So they could pay all the blog­gers they want in Trinidad. We don’t care about your opin­ion,” he said.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Au­gus­tine ac­cused his po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents of run­ning a cam­paign dri­ven by fear and false­hoods.

“They are run­ning a cam­paign based on fear. We are run­ning a cam­paign based on hope,” he said. “They are run­ning a cam­paign based on al­le­ga­tions. We are run­ning a cam­paign based on as­pi­ra­tion. They are run­ning a cam­paign based on fic­tion. We are run­ning a cam­paign based on facts.”

He al­so re­ferred to claims sur­round­ing the car­go boat.

“And so they try, and have been try­ing, to dri­ve fear about car­go boat,” Au­gus­tine said. “And I came out and I said that very night.”

Au­gus­tine al­so claimed that Trinida­di­ans at­tend PNM meet­ings in To­ba­go to give the im­pres­sion the par­ty has ma­jor sup­port. He said TPP meet­ings, how­ev­er, are at­tend­ed by To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“When I look here, you don’t have a sin­gle Trinida­di­an in this au­di­ence,” he said. “This is an au­then­tic To­ba­go au­di­ence, an in­dige­nous To­ba­go au­di­ence… These are au­then­tic To­ba­go crowd.”