YOU SPLIT UP NAR TOBAGO

PNM Tobago Leader Orville London has scoffed at DAC leader Hochoy Charles’ invitation to disgruntled PNMites to cross to the DAC, and has dismissed Charles’ assertion that he (London) had “mashed up” the PNM and “crashed” Tobago. With incumbent PNM Assemblyman Hughford McKenna having already thrown his support behind the DAC, Charles, addressing the DAC’s recent campaign launch, had called on Anthony Arnold, another bypassed PNM Assemblyman, Eudine Job-Davis, who reportedly enjoys a strained relationship with London, and other PNMites who may be disgruntled with the party, to join the DAC where they would be welcome and “taken care of.”

However, London, responded with disdain to Charles: “But, no, no, let me tell you something; the statistics indicate, when I came into the PNM we fought an election in Tobago East (the 1997 by-election to replace then MP ANR Robinson who had been elevated to the TT Presidency) where Mr Hilson Phillips polled something like 18 percent,” he said. “In the last General Election Mr Callender polled over 70 percent of the votes in Tobago West, and Eudine Job-Davis would have polled I think over 55 percent of the votes in Tobago East. We have won three consecutive elections (two General Elections and one THA election) in Tobago in a situation where the PNM had not won an election in Tobago for over 26 years,” noted London.

“And if that is crashing the PNM, then I will continue crashing the PNM!” he told Newsday. On the contrary, he observed, Charles has led the NAR to four consecutive election defeats, including when Charles himself was defeated by Callender for the Tobago West parliamentary seat in 2002. London said, in fact, it was after Charles refused to step down as NAR Tobago leader following these string of defeats, that the party split in two, with Charles going his way with one faction to reactivate the DAC. “Therefore the question of ‘breaking up’ or ‘crashing’ a party is certainly applicable to Charles, not me!” London asserted. On the question of so called disgruntled PNMites joining the fold of the DAC, London, according to traditional saying, declared: “Sense make before book!”