Friends again? Duke, PDP to campaign for Farley ahead of 2026 elections

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke has fi­nal­ly bro­ken months of si­lence on his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture to pub­licly de­clare his sup­port for Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP). It is a dra­mat­ic turn for the man who once led the PDP to a his­toric land­slide vic­to­ry, on­ly to watch the par­ty col­lapse af­ter a bit­ter fall­out with Au­gus­tine him­self.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the PDP’s Scar­bor­ough head of­fice, Duke asked the hand­ful of loy­al sup­port­ers who re­mained with him—his “Spar­tans”—to ral­ly be­hind Au­gus­tine ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tions.

But while he an­nounced his sup­port, Duke re­fused to say what role the PDP would play in the up­com­ing race or whether the par­ty would con­test any seats at all. He of­fered no clar­i­ty on his own cam­paign and avoid­ed all ques­tions about whether the PDP is now op­er­at­ing as an in­for­mal arm of the TPP.

Duke said on­ly that his de­ci­sion fol­lowed a re­cent phone call with Au­gus­tine.

“I want to be clear what I’m say­ing. I said we are sup­port­ing Far­ley. A house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand,” he told re­porters.

Duke framed the move as a re­turn to uni­ty, even though their very pub­lic split in 2022 caused the PDP’s col­lapse. By De­cem­ber of that year, al­most the en­tire PDP lead­er­ship—in­clud­ing Au­gus­tine—quit the par­ty which stemmed from a row over fund­ing for folk per­form­ers who trav­elled to New York. They lat­er formed the TPP, leav­ing Duke as the lone PDP as­sem­bly­man in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

De­spite that his­to­ry, Duke in­sist­ed yes­ter­day that their re­la­tion­ship re­mains in­tact.

“Far­ley and I have joined hands to­geth­er in 2016, and there’s no sep­a­ra­tion… I sim­ply say that we are one. There’s no sep­a­ra­tion. There is no coali­tion. There’s no amal­ga­ma­tion.”

But he did not ex­plain what “one” now means in prac­ti­cal terms. He re­fused to say whether the PDP has can­di­dates pre­pared for Nom­i­na­tion Day. And he did not con­firm whether the PDP brand will ap­pear on the bal­lot at all.

In­stead, Duke promised to mo­bilise vot­ers on the ground for the TPP’s cam­paign.

“Far­ley has our sup­port. We will be go­ing on the high­ways and the by­ways, the nooks and the cran­nies. We will be look­ing for the for­got­ten peo­ple. Those who have been alien­at­ed.”

He added that the mis­sion now is to “bring home 15 seats” and block the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment from re­turn­ing to pow­er.

The PDP that cap­tured al­most 18,000 votes in the 2021 THA elec­tion is now a frac­tion of its for­mer size. In the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the par­ty con­test­ed both To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West, earn­ing 5,866 votes in To­ba­go East and 4,501 in To­ba­go West, ac­cord­ing to Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion da­ta. The par­ty caught more than 10,000 votes is­land­wide.

But in this year’s April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, its sup­port col­lapsed to un­der 1,000 votes is­land­wide.

The sharp de­cline showed how much of the PDP base shift­ed to Au­gus­tine af­ter the 2022 split, leav­ing Duke with a far small­er po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion head­ing in­to the THA race.

Duke did not ad­dress that de­cline di­rect­ly yes­ter­day. In­stead, he leaned heav­i­ly on emo­tion­al lan­guage, de­scrib­ing loy­al­ty, for­give­ness, and the need for uni­ty. He dis­missed the rift be­tween him­self and Au­gus­tine as “fam­i­ly busi­ness,” say­ing their po­lit­i­cal re­union was nat­ur­al and over­due.

He al­so said his sup­port was un­con­di­tion­al, but again de­clined to out­line what role he ex­pect­ed to play in the TPP’s cam­paign or whether the PDP still func­tions as a stand-alone po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

Both Au­gus­tine and PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis did not re­spond to calls yes­ter­day seek­ing com­ment on Duke’s an­nounce­ment.

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke formed the PDP in 2015.

Far­ley Au­gus­tine be­came in­volved in the PDP and, by 2019, was a deputy leader with­in the par­ty

De­cem­ber 2021 THA elec­tions, the PDP won 14 of 15 seats. As part of a deal, Au­gus­tine was sworn in as Chief Sec­re­tary of the THA and Duke as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber 2022, Duke claimed that 27 mem­bers of the Rox­bor­ough Folk Per­form­ers who trav­elled to New York to per­form were aban­doned by the Au­gus­tine-led ad­min­is­tra­tion with­out prop­er fund­ing

Au­gus­tine re­spond­ed, say­ing the THA had pro­vid­ed funds amount­ing to TT$400,417.50 to cov­er air­fare and ex­pens­es.

He lat­er said he was re­view­ing Duke’s port­fo­lios as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary, cit­ing al­leged fail­ures to ful­fill his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Duke re­moved Au­gus­tine (and two oth­ers) as deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of the PDP

Sep­tem­ber 15, 2022, Duke for­mal­ly re­signed as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary

De­cem­ber 2022, Au­gus­tine and a ma­jor­i­ty of THA mem­bers re­signed from the PDP, leav­ing Duke as the on­ly PDP mem­ber in the As­sem­bly.