THA nomination papers filed

Candidates of the four political parties gearing to contest the elections: the People’s National Movement (PNM), the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP), the Movement for Transformation (MFT) and the Tobago Forwards, turned out at the various offices of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) to submit their nomination papers.

The PNM, PDP and Tobago Forwards will each contest all 12 electoral districts, while the MFT, led by former parliamentarian and government minister, Eudine Job-Davis, will contest three of the districts.

All 39 candidates filed the necessary documents and paid their $2000 deposit making them the legitimate bidders in the election ring.

While six candidates for the East districts filed their papers at the Rockley Vale office, the other candidates for the West filed theirs at the Main Street office.

Three of the four political parties turned up with much fanfare as scores of supporters dressed in party colours, waving banners, flags and other paraphernalia accompanied by large music trucks.

All the candidates indicated that the process went fairly smoothly as this followed a dry run session which was held one week ago.

Speaking with reporters, Political Leader of the PNM Tobago Council, Kelvin Charles, accompanied by his wife Kathryn and sons Kelvon and Kelson said that the nomination process made way for a series of campaign meetings.

“We have been on the ground and generally the responses have been very favourable, so we are quite confident that we would retain control of the Tobago House of Assembly,” he said.

Charles noted that the island’s affairs was well handled under the current PNM-led THA over the last four years. Political Leader of the PDP, Watson Duke, said Tobago has had enough of the PNM after 16 years and is now ready to get rid of them.

“We are fully confident of victory in at least seven seats,” Duke said.

“We are still working on five more seats to make the 12 because we need to balance the curse the PNM has placed upon Tobago over the last 16 years,” he said. A confident Duke said one of the safe seats for the PDP is the Roxborough/ Delaford electoral district.

“There is no chance of Watson Duke not being successful at the polls and when I say at the polls, the seat Roxborough/ Delaford is already taken that is a marked seat and it is marked Watson Duke seat on that and nobody can take that away from me.” On the other hand, Political Leader of the Tobago Forwards, Christlyn Moore, said that the work has started.

Though her idea of unity among the parties opposing the PNM failed, Moore said she respects the wishes of the leaders.

“We are on the ground and we are very excited,” Moore said. “In the early days, we held extensive talks with Ashworth Jack and, in the more recent part, we have had conversations with Watson Duke whose position is adamant that he is a standalone entity and we respect that.” The MFT’s Political Leader, Eudine Job-Davis, is vowing to provide Tobago with the best form of Governance possible.

“Integrity in public life seems to be a thing of the past and we are hoping that we can bring that back into politics. Further, we are also looking at the Tobago House of Assembly and the Chief Secretary,” Job-Davis said. “There is a present Chief Secretary sitting there for like 16 years and we think that this should not happen at all.

Therefore, our political party has borrowed from the American system where we are going to limit anybody who ascends to the office to two terms.”