PNM LANDSLIDE

The last time the people of Tobago went to the polls in 2001, we commented that our twin island had gone full circle after 25 years and was now back in the hands of the PNM. This was so because in the previous December 2000 General Elections the PNM had won the two national seats in Tobago. This was followed in January 2001 when the PNM had captured eight of the 12 seats to the NAR’s four in the Tobago House of Assembly. The NAR had controlled the THA from its inception, starting with its predecessor, the Democratic Action Congress (DAC).

Yesterday the PNM increased its seat count, and at presstime, returns indicated that it had made a clean sweep of the 12 seats of the THA despite the political move by Mr Hochoy Charles who switched from the NAR for this election and revived the DAC, which he led to defeat yesterday. Mr Charles, who lost his seat, read the situation on the ground in Tobago and concluded that there was dissatisfaction with the PNM and concerns that the Chief Secretary Orville London was a puppet of Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Whether true or not, these did not seem to have affected voters’ decisions to stay with the PNM, and indeed, to give the PNM more control of the island’s affairs.

In reviving the DAC, which is grounded in Tobago’s desire for autonomy, Mr Charles took with him Cecil Caruth, the chairman of the NAR, a blow which rendered the NAR irrelevant in the affairs of Tobago. But that too seems to have backfired, and to have cost Mr Caruth his seat. To many, the news of PNM’s stalwarts quitting the party and offering themselves as Independents, and the sight of Prime Minister Manning and other ministers in Tobago walking about villages and kissing babies were taken by some to suggest that the PNM was in trouble and that not even the purchase of two fast ferries would help the party.

Now that the PNM is even in greater control in Tobago and Chief Secretary Orville London has been given a second term, he would have to deal with the concerns of Tobagonians, many of whom are of the view that while Tobago gets a sizeable sum of money from the central government, a lot of this money is coming back to Trinidad in terms of contracts being awarded to Trinidadians and similar concerns. The resurgence of the DAC, although it did not win a seat, is something that the PNM will have to look at very carefully as it prepares for national elections, constitutionally due in 2007.