Nomination Day in Tobago: 44 candidates expected to file papers for THA polls

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Seek­ing to avoid a re­peat of clash­es that marred Nom­i­na­tion Day dur­ing the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties con­test­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions on Jan­u­ary 12 have urged their sup­port­ers to con­duct them­selves ap­pro­pri­ate­ly dur­ing to­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day process.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) is al­so hop­ing for an or­der­ly process to­day.

Nom­i­na­tions for all prospec­tive can­di­dates will be filed at four lo­ca­tions across the is­land—the Calder Hall Mul­ti-Pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty, Lam­beau Mul­ti-Pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty, Buc­coo Mul­ti-Pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty and Glam­or­gan Mul­ti-Pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty.

On April 4, dur­ing Nom­i­na­tion Day for the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, there was a tense mo­ment be­tween sup­port­ers of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), forc­ing po­lice to in­ter­vene.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both the TPP and PNM yes­ter­day to as­cer­tain if any words of cau­tion were is­sued to mem­bers to avoid a re­cur­rence.

TPP chair­per­son Ann Natasha Sec­ond said, “I’ve giv­en the in­struc­tions that we are to pro­ceed with dis­ci­pline and the core of our man­date, abide by all of the tenets of the law. We don’t have to en­gage in those things and it will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

She added, “Each group would have their dif­fer­ent in­di­vid­ual lead­ers. Our in­ten­tion is to make sure that we main­tain con­trol. You know when rum drink­ing and so on, any­thing can play. We’re not sup­posed to have clash­es based on our rigid time­lines arranged with the po­lice and our in­struc­tions and our gen­er­al man­age­ment of the groups on the day.”

Asked about the par­ty’s readi­ness for to­day, the TPP chair said, “We’re hyped up, we’re pumped up, we’ve mo­bilised and we’re ready.”

The same ques­tion about main­tain­ing or­der to­day was put to Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis.

Den­nis replied, “That’s ob­vi­ous­ly the in­ten­tion. I’ve con­tin­u­ous­ly said on the plat­form that we’re go­ing to be con­duct­ing a clean cam­paign based on the is­sues and based on what we’ve been look­ing for­ward to in terms of im­proved qual­i­ty of life and so on.

“Based on what I’ve seen from the sched­ule, the TPP will be start­ing off in the East, so I don’t ex­pect there to be any clash­es at any of the venues like what hap­pened the last time for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. We’re not go­ing to be hav­ing any al­co­hol, so I just hope that that will not be the sit­u­a­tion with any drink­ing and so on that could cause peo­ple to be­have in any man­ner that is un­be­com­ing, not just of the PNM but of the peo­ple of To­ba­go. We are a peace­ful peo­ple.”

He added, “We have some of our lead­ers here, un­for­tu­nate­ly, that will sow seeds of dis­cord and seeds of ha­tred, but by and large, To­bag­o­ni­ans are a peace­ful, lov­ing peo­ple, and that is the kind of en­vi­ron­ment that we are in­ter­est­ed in con­duct­ing this elec­tion and man­ag­ing our process in go­ing for­ward.”

The PNM will face a task in at­tempt­ing to over­turn its 14–1 de­feat in De­cem­ber 2021. Asked about the mood with­in the par­ty’s camp, Den­nis said they are con­fi­dent and pre­pared.

“We are ready. We are ac­cus­tomed to this process for every elec­tion, so we are quite pre­pared for to­mor­row,” he said.

Den­nis point­ed out, how­ev­er, that there was a mi­nor is­sue with the EBC re­gard­ing the use of a com­mis­sion­er of af­fi­davits in­stead of a jus­tice of the peace, but said the mat­ter has since been re­solved.

Both the PNM and TPP will be field­ing 15 can­di­dates each.

The TPP has promised to lead To­ba­go to­wards gain­ing au­ton­o­my and to be in­clud­ed in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

The PNM, mean­while, has ac­cused the TPP of putting To­bag­o­ni­ans in dan­ger by sup­port­ing the in­stal­la­tion of a mil­i­tary radar on the is­land at a time of height­ened ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States.

The par­ty has vowed to re­move the radar if elect­ed in­to of­fice.

Yes­ter­day, the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA), led by Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, con­firmed it was still work­ing out its fi­nal can­di­date list. The par­ty has so far named 11 can­di­dates but there may be a 12th to­day.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia, how­ev­er, the IDA leader was not op­ti­mistic that the nec­es­sary process could be com­plet­ed in time.

“He tried to get va­ca­tion time off to go. And they have re­fused this va­ca­tion time. So, we’re try­ing to work around it to see whether he’s go­ing to take pay with­out leave. So, we’re try­ing to see how we could sup­port him with that.”

Tsoiafatt-An­gus said peo­ple un­der­es­ti­mate her par­ty but she point­ed out that they made the dif­fer­ence in the last THA elec­tion.

Dur­ing that elec­tion, the IDA caused up­sets in three dis­tricts.

In Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) beat the PNM by four votes, with the IDA cap­tur­ing 30 votes in that dis­trict.

Mean­while, in Dar­rel Spring/Whim, the PNM de­feat­ed the PDP by three votes, with the IDA get­ting 18. In Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill, the PDP won by 21 votes, with the IDA get­ting 26.

EBC chief elec­tions of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis says the com­mis­sion is ready for to­day’s process.

“The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) is ful­ly pre­pared to re­ceive and process nom­i­na­tion pa­pers of prospec­tive can­di­dates on Nom­i­na­tion Day, to­mor­row, Fri­day 19th De­cem­ber, 2025, in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act,” Nar­cis said yes­ter­day.

She added, “In prepa­ra­tion for Nom­i­na­tion Day, a num­ber of prospec­tive can­di­dates availed them­selves of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers pre-ex­am­ined by re­turn­ing of­fi­cers last Fri­day, 12th De­cem­ber, as well as dur­ing the in­ter­ven­ing days lead­ing up to Nom­i­na­tion Day. This pre-ex­am­i­na­tion process is a leg­is­lat­ed ad­min­is­tra­tive fa­cil­i­ta­tion of­fered by the EBC to as­sist prospec­tive can­di­dates in en­sur­ing that their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers are prop­er­ly com­plet­ed and com­pli­ant with the statu­to­ry re­quire­ments ahead of for­mal sub­mis­sion.

“The EBC looks for­ward to a smooth and or­der­ly nom­i­na­tion process to­mor­row. The com­mis­sion re­mains com­mit­ted to the ef­fi­cient, trans­par­ent, and im­par­tial con­duct of the elec­toral process and as­sures the pub­lic that all nec­es­sary arrange­ments are in place to sup­port the suc­cess­ful ex­e­cu­tion of Nom­i­na­tion Day.”

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed each of the four nom­i­na­tion of­fices and was told at each lo­ca­tion that every­thing was in or­der.

Forty-four can­di­dates are ex­pect­ed to file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to­day.

Three par­ties are field­ing a sin­gle can­di­date each—the Class Ac­tion Re­form Move­ment (CARM), with po­lit­i­cal leader Richard Phillip con­test­ing Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant; Uni­ty of the Peo­ple, led by Niko­cy Phillip, al­so con­test­ing Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant; and the To­ba­go Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment, whose can­di­date An­tho­ny James is vy­ing for the Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan dis­trict.

Wat­son Duke’s PDP, which won the elec­tion in De­cem­ber 2021, be­fore mem­bers left to form the TPP, has thrown his sup­port be­hind Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s par­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the EBC, the elec­torate in the 15 elec­toral dis­tricts in To­ba­go rose from 51,216 to 52,857.

The EBC re­cent­ly rec­om­mend­ed name changes for two elec­toral dis­tricts. Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah be­came Ma­son Hall North/Mo­ri­ah. And Bagatelle/Ba­co­let be­came Ma­son Hall South/Bagatelle.

In De­cem­ber 2021, 56.97 per cent of the to­tal elec­torate cast their votes.