Watson Duke
LOWLANDS – POLITICAL leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) Watson Duke is claiming that the hierarchy of the People’s National Movement PNM) wants Kelvin Charles out of the party’s Tobago Council.
He said that Charles, who is Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), will be replaced by THA presiding officer Dr Denise Tsoiafatt Angus.
Duke made these claims during his feature address on Sunday, at the launch of the PDP’s general election and THA election campaigns at the Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort, Lowlands in Tobago.
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The PNM’s Tobago internal party elections were yet to be announced.
Tsoiafatt Angus is a former community development and culture secretary under former chief secretary Orville London.
Duke said, “The PNM election is coming up and I heard the prime minister and everybody backing ‘Dr D’ because they say as long as he (Charles) is the chief secretary, Watson go win the election.”
Tsoiafatt Angus was unsuccessfully when she contested the 2016 PNM internal elections.
In his address from a stage that was a boxing ring, Duke said Tobago did not have its own university and the police were still taking instructions from Trinidad.
He said, “We must control our own business here.”
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Duke said, “Being a skilled negotiator as I am, under my tenureship in the PSA (Public Services Association) we have done miraculous things, too numerous to mention.
“But the same work I put in for the PSA I am going to put in for you. I guarantee you, give me those two seats and we are going to bring it home.”
He also called for self-governance for Tobago.
“Next year will be 40 years since e have been crying out for the self government…I means that we will have the right to determine for ourselves things that matter to us,” Duke said.
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Duke said the PDP will contest contest the general elections and all 12 electoral districts in the THA elections, constitutionally due in 2021.
In the last THA election held in January 2017, the PDP won two of the 12 electoral districts- Roxborough/Delaford (Duke) and Speyside/L’Anse Fourmi/Parlatuvier (Farley Augustine).
Duke is also the Minority Leader in the THA.
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