POLITICAL analyst Dr Indira Rampersad says the Tobago People’s Party (TPP) does not have to join the UNC-led coalition government or get ministerial portfolios in the cabinet to negotiate for greater autonomy and other initiatives for the island.
She said there was nothing wrong with the TPP’s decision to retain its identity and simply negotiate with the government to get self-government for Tobago.
The TPP’s Joel Sampson and David Thomas won the Tobago West and East seats, respectively, in the April 28 general election. The PNM had held those two seats since 2015.
The UNC won the overall election with 26 seats while the PNM got 13.
During the campaign, TPP political leader Farley Augustine said if the party won the two Tobago seats, it would place them in an advantageous position to negotiate for autonomy with whichever party formed the government.
He said then, “Tobago, we have an opportunity again to send two people to the Parliament whose focus is not a Cabinet but whose focus is Tobago’s freedom, whose focus is not on a big position but whose focus is on the well-being of the people of Tobago.”
“I want to tell you that from where we stand, cabinet is for fine china. Cabinet is where you place your granny’s best china and you don’t ever use it. You wash it for Christmas and you put them back. Our responsibility, our purpose, is to go there and to negotiate for Tobago a better autonomy bill.”
In a recent post-election interview, TPP deputy political leader Dr Faith Brebnor said the party’s two votes in the Parliament remain independent of the PNM or UNC.
“Our MPs will negotiate outside of the Parliament and vote inside the Parliament for the issues that affect Tobago. We have always maintained that we are not a part of any coalition. There is an executive in Trinidad and an executive in Tobago. The law is clear on how these two should work. In the areas where there is need to be clearer or fairer, we will negotiate outside and vote inside accordingly.”
Rampersad believes the TPP’s position has merit.
“I think their plan for negotiations will work out very well because it was very similar under the NAR (National Alliance for Reconstruction) in the 1995 scenario. They never became UNC. They kept their identity as NAR,” she told Newsday.
“I think it’s better this way because in 1995 they needed those two Tobago seats to form the government because the result of the general election was 17-17-2.”
In the November 6, 1995, general election, the then UNC was able to form a coalition with the two NAR seats in Tobago, enabling UNC leader Basdeo Panday to become the prime minister.
Rampersad said there were no similarities in the scenarios that existed for Tobago in the 1995, 2010 and 2025 general elections.
She said in the 1995 election, the UNC needed the two Tobago seats to split its 17-17 tie with the PNM. But in the May 24, 2010, general election, called more than two years before it was constitutionally due, the Ashworth Jack-led Tobago Organisation of the People went into the election
