Jesse Ramdeo 

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) plan is to “put To­ba­go first again.”

She made the com­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing, as To­bag­o­ni­ans went to the vot­ing booth in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion.

Beck­les, who said she was on the is­land for the ac­tiv­i­ty, said the PNM’s cam­paign was built on di­rect en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties across To­ba­go. She not­ed that over the past sev­er­al weeks, par­ty mem­bers and can­di­dates went vil­lage to vil­lage and town to town, lis­ten­ing to res­i­dents, hear­ing their con­cerns and earn­ing their trust.

“Our plan, put To­ba­go first again, speaks di­rect­ly to the is­sues peo­ple raised with us. It fo­cus­es on jobs and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty, re­build­ing and strength­en­ing tourism, sup­port­ing agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty, im­prov­ing hous­ing and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, and en­sur­ing safer com­mu­ni­ties with bet­ter ac­cess to health­care and ed­u­ca­tion. It al­so com­mits to im­prov­ing in­fra­struc­ture while pro­tect­ing the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment that makes To­ba­go spe­cial.”

Ac­cord­ing to Beck­les, the PNM pre­sent­ed 15 can­di­dates who un­der­stood To­ba­go and live the re­al­i­ties of their com­mu­ni­ties. She said the can­di­dates were pre­pared to serve with in­tegri­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and care for the peo­ple they rep­re­sent.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ex­pressed con­fi­dence that To­bag­o­ni­ans would place their trust in the PNM, adding that the par­ty’s plan was shaped by is­sues raised dur­ing the cam­paign.

Back in 2021, To­ba­go held two sep­a­rate THA elec­tions due to a his­toric 6-6 dead­lock in the orig­i­nal­ly card­ed Jan­u­ary poll that fun­da­men­tal­ly re­shaped the is­land’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape. The “snap” elec­tion, which was held on De­cem­ber 6, us­ing a new 15-seat con­fig­u­ra­tion, saw the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) hand­ing the PNM a 14-1 de­feat.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said the out­come of the elec­tion will play a ma­jor role in shap­ing how the cen­tral gov­ern­ment en­gages To­ba­go on de­vel­op­ment and au­ton­o­my is­sues.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hammed said a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) vic­to­ry could al­low for smoother col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the THA and cen­tral gov­ern­ment due to a shared vi­sion and clear­er un­der­stand­ing of de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties, spend­ing and con­ser­va­tion.

“For the TPP, it will be a launch pad to­wards achiev­ing au­ton­o­my, fi­nan­cial in­ter­de­pen­dence and in­de­pen­dence, growth and de­vel­op­ment, push­ing the is­land to where it is se­mi-stand­alone and it will pro­vide a vi­sion that they know the Prime Min­is­ter will lis­ten to them be­cause they un­der­stand​​​​​​​ and there may be greater ac­count­abil­i­ty with how much mon­ey is giv­en to To­ba­go.”

How­ev­er, he ar­gued that a PNM vic­to­ry in To­ba­go could present chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly with re­spect to au­ton­o­my. He said he be­lieves such an out­come could be a set­back for au­ton­o­my, as it would re­quire ex­ten­sive col­lab­o­ra­tion, con­ces­sions and ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween dif­fer­ent vi­sions for the is­land’s fu­ture.

He not­ed that the PNM has pre­vi­ous­ly out­lined its per­spec­tive on au­ton­o­my in a white pa­per, while the TPP and the for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion hold their own views. Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed, these dif­fer­ences could cre­ate a com­bat­ive space for dis­cus­sion and ne­go­ti­a­tion, po­ten­tial­ly stalling progress to the detri­ment of the is­land and its peo­ple.

Mo­hammed al­so sug­gest­ed that de­pend­ing on the out­come, the Prime Min­is­ter may re­ly more heav­i­ly on To­ba­go’s two Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment for To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West when ad­vanc­ing de­vel­op­ment projects.