TOBAGO DAC: WE WERE RIGHT TO CHANGE NAME

The recently-formed alliance between the United National Congress (UNC) and the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) in Trinidad proves members of the Tobago NAR were right in effecting a name-change and reverting to the Democratic Action Congress (DAC). So said the DAC’s Public Relations/Communications Officer, Ashworth Jack, during a press conference Wednesday at the party’s offices at Breeze Hall, Scarborough. Jack was accompanied by Dr Jeff Davidson, a member of the DAC’s interim Committee.

The press briefing, said Jack, was called “against the backdrop of all that has been happening in terms of the politics in Tobago and in Trinidad in the last couple of months, and in particular looking at what has been happening in terms of the arrangement, in terms of the NAR/UNC and what has happened in terms of the DAC. “The DAC, led by former NAR Tobago Leader Hochoy Charles (who was conspicuously absent), was formed by members of a faction of  the Tobago NAR following a no-confidence motion in the party leadership (Charles, Jack, and Judy Bobb) by another faction led by deputy chairman Christo Gift which has remained the NAR. The UNC and the NAR in Trinidad recently forged what UNC Leader Basdeo Panday described as a “non-agression pact” to fight the July 14 Local Government Elections.

When news of this development broke, Gift said the Tobago NAR was totally against it and would be left with no choice but to go it alone. However, Jack told reporters he was very surprised to hear this from Gift, since, he claimed, Gift, like other members of the then Tobago NAR, was well aware that this was the intention of the NAR in Trinidad. Jack claimed for more than a year the Tobago NAR had been toying with the idea of “returning (to the DAC) or changing the name of what was then NAR, “and a number of meetings were held taking into consideration what was happening in terms of the national politics and in terms of the  politics of the party. He said that at a monthly membership meeting of the then Tobago NAR in early September last year, “we would have discussed the change of the party name at length. “That came about because in that same month the now political leader of the NAR, Mr Sankersingh, the then secretary now chairman of the NAR, Mr Constantine, and Mr Rawle Raphael, met Mr (Hochoy) Charles, Dr Davidson and I in this very place (at Breeze Hall), “he told journalists. “And their discussions centred around their ability or inability to survive as an organisation; and one of the things that they were saying was that they do not think that they could survive as a party in Trinidad alone, and therefore they would have wanted to form some kind of arrangement with some other organisation.” They named Team Unity and the UNC.

Jack said: “We would have registered our concern about the kind of arrangement and how it would affect Tobago, Tobago as party and Tobago as an island. “He said they explained they were aware of “our problem in Tobago but you need to understand our problem in Trinidad.” They maintained they had no choice but to form some kind of arrangement in Trinidad, and we made it clear that the other option we had was to consider the possibility of a name-change, according to Jack. “In fact,  we made very strong terms that we would have had to look at that. We would have also said to them ‘we want to have an organisation that was independent of any decision-making anywhere else, but we were free to form any arrangement that was in the best interest of Tobago if and when that time comes, “he said. It was however decided that any such move to change the party’s name would be outside of election time. It was against this background that several months later steps were taken to effect the change to the DAC.