Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les

@guardian.co.tt

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Earl Elie is warn­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties and their sup­port­ers to con­trol loud mu­sic and be­hav­iour dur­ing the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion sea­son, say­ing ex­ces­sive noise and con­fronta­tion can be­come of­fences.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Elie said the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of Po­lice have not re­ceived any of­fi­cial com­plaints about noise pol­lu­tion, but cam­paign or­gan­is­ers should be mind­ful of res­i­dents who are not part of po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties.

“The noise pol­lu­tion it­self could be very an­noy­ing, and in some cas­es, it could be con­sid­ered an of­fence,” Elie said.

He urged par­ties to use dis­cre­tion, es­pe­cial­ly with late-night cam­paign­ing in res­i­den­tial ar­eas.

“I know it is elec­tion time, but there are per­sons who are dis­com­fit­ed by the loud noise,” he said. “So please be con­sid­er­ate.”

The warn­ing comes against the back­drop of tense en­coun­ters dur­ing pre­vi­ous elec­tions in To­ba­go.

Dur­ing nom­i­na­tion day for the last gen­er­al elec­tion, there was a stand­off be­tween po­lice and then Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke, as of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to man­age crowd con­trol and the place­ment of cam­paign ma­te­r­i­al.

In the 2021 THA elec­tion sea­son, a po­lice of­fi­cer was al­so as­sault­ed at the Port Mall dur­ing an in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a PDP sup­port­er. The sus­pect was lat­er ar­rest­ed.

Elie said To­ba­go Po­lice are ful­ly pre­pared for the cur­rent elec­tion sea­son and have al­ready been car­ry­ing out elec­tion-re­lat­ed du­ties since cam­paign­ing be­gan two weeks ago.

“We are ful­ly pre­pared and ready to han­dle any even­tu­al­i­ty,” he said.

He al­so urged sup­port­ers to con­trol their emo­tions and avoid con­fronta­tion, re­mind­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans that they all have to live to­geth­er af­ter the elec­tions are over.

“We are one in To­ba­go,” Elie said. “Af­ter the elec­tion is over, we all have to live in To­ba­go and share To­ba­go’s space.”

He called on the pub­lic to al­low peo­ple to vote in peace and re­spect dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal choic­es.

“Please con­trol your emo­tions and al­low per­sons to ex­er­cise their fran­chise in peace,” he said.