Duke dismisses Tobago unity offer

TOBAGO BUREAU

TOBAGO House of Assembly (THA) Minority Leader and leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) Watson Duke has dismissed the offer to join the Tobago Liberation and Empowerment Team.

On Sunday, members of three po­lit­i­cal par­ties in To­ba­go (the Plat­form of Truth (TPT), To­ba­go For­wards (TF) and To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP)) met for a second conversation on “Uniting the peoples of Tobago.”

During the meeting, questions surfaced on the possibility of the PDP joining this team.

Responding on Wednesday at the Office of the Minority Leader in Scarborough, Duke said, “Let that one voice be the PDP voice.”

He said he was “happy for Mr Charles, Mr Jack, Ms Moore in their quest to unite Tobago – and Tobago must be united. I think Tobago is united.

“However, my word of advice to them…is they are looking for a vehicle, Mark 2 is a Toyota vehicle, but more than that, Mark 2 has some important words for them. I think they should use Mark 2 as a vehicle… Mark 2, Verse 22 says: ‘And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins’

“A word to the wise is sufficient. The PDP considers ourselves to be new wines and if Tobago is to unite, then that too must be seen as new wine.” He said there was room in the PDP for everyone and everyone is welcome.

“We don’t see another vehicle,but the PDP vehicle and we would continue to have discussions along those lines and make accommodations, make adjustments…but by and large we are not putting new wines in old wine bottles.”

Duke admitted he met with the team in in January to discuss the political future ofTobago, but said he realised they “did not have the formula to remove the People’s National Movement (PNM).

“It is important for us to get the PNM out and it is important for us to speak with one voice. However, when I spoke with Mr (Hochoy) Charles and I expressed to him the thinking of the membership of the PDP, and I said to him I want to work together with him, and I said the same thing to Mr Ashworth Jack and Ms Christlyn Moore, they all agreed with the idea of working together – but the formula for working together is what there seemed to be some disagreement on.”

Nevertheless, he said they were all his friends. “I believe they have contributed to Tobago’s development in more ways than one,” he said.

But Duke added that while he has great respect for the three leaders, he remains horrified by their approach. He admitting he had offered a proposal, which the team did not agree with.

“My first and only meeting I was invited to with them, which took place in January, I recall Mr Charles, the former chief secretary, saying to me, ‘We are not concerned right now with the name of any political party nor anything like that, all we want to do is listen to the people of Tobago, find out what they need, have this list of things that Tobago needs, and then we would look for a vehicle.’

“I was appalled, I remain appalled to this day,” he said. “How could you give birth to a child, and, based on the direction the child takes, you then decide to name the child? That to me is not what parents do, parents name a child and they try to train the child in a particular direction.”