Camille McEach­nie

The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots(PDP)has in­vit­ed three To­ba­go po­lit­i­cal par­ties, ex­clud­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), to dis­cuss the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The To­ba­go For­wards (TF), To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) and The Plat­form of Truth (TPT) are the par­ties in­vit­ed to a meet­ing to dis­cuss the way for­ward.

This was con­firmed by PDP’s leader, Wat­son Duke, and chair­man of the One To­ba­go Voice steer­ing com­mit­tee, Ho­choy Charles.

Duke has al­so got the sup­port of the Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty led by Phillip Alexan­der.

The TF, TOP, and TPT have formed one po­lit­i­cal group­ing called One To­ba­go Voice but the PDP wrote to each par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal leader sep­a­rate­ly, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands.

Tobago Forwards leader Christlyn Moore

“Yes, we each got a sep­a­rate let­ter. How­ev­er, we met un­der the One To­ba­go Voice um­brel­la and de­cid­ed we should meet with the PDP. The meet­ing should have tak­en place to­day (Fri­day, Ju­ly 10), but the PDP had its head­quar­ters’ launch, so the meet­ing did not take place,” Charles said.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with Duke ex­clu­sive­ly on the mat­ter, at the launch.

“We, the PDP, de­cid­ed to reach out to them as this elec­tion is a To­ba­go fight and all of To­ba­go should go to the elec­tion as one group fight­ing the PNM,” Duke told Guardian Me­dia.

Asked if the PDP was now seek­ing to form a coali­tion, Duke said, “We do not want to form a coali­tion but want an ab­sence of di­vi­sion.”

Pressed fur­ther for an ex­pla­na­tion, he said, “The ab­sence of di­vi­sion means, in­stead of Ho­choy Charles aim­ing his guns at Wat­son Duke...he must un­der­stand that kind of talk is not serv­ing the in­ter­est of To­ba­go be­cause I am not the en­e­my. I am not the one deny­ing To­ba­go the right to in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment. I have as­sist­ed To­ba­go with is­sues re­lat­ing to the in­ter­is­land boat, the air­fare, and Cen­tral Bank.”

Hochoy Charles, Chairman of the One Tobago Voice Party.

“In­fight­ing among the par­ties is a dis­trac­tion and cre­ates con­fu­sion in the minds of To­bag­o­ni­ans,” Duke added.

Last year, the PDP spurned the coali­tion par­ty’s ad­vances, to join their par­ty and form one group to speak on To­ba­go’s be­half.

Mean­while, at the sim­ple cer­e­mo­ny to mark the open­ing of its par­ty’s head­quar­ters at the Port Mall, Scar­bor­ough, the PDP re­newed its call for leg­isla­tive changes for To­ba­go.

Duke, who brought re­marks at the cer­e­mo­ny, said the PNM had its time to make the changes but had not done so.

Wax­ing Bib­li­cal, he quot­ed from the books of Ec­cle­si­astes and Daniel, telling the crowd of sup­port­ers there is a sea­son for every­thing.

“For 40 long years, we have been bat­tling in To­ba­go seek­ing in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment...it is the sea­son for the PDP to de­liv­er it,” Duke said.

Duke will rep­re­sent his par­ty in To­ba­go East and Tashia Grace Bur­ris- To­ba­go West. They will face the PNM’s Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy and Sham­fa Cud­joe, re­spec­tive­ly.