PDP's Buccoo/Mt Pleasant candidate: 'Sonny days ahead'

Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) candidate for Buccoo/Mt Pleasant Sonny Craig is promising residents of the electoral district – “Sonny days ahead.”.

Speaking during the party’s spot meeting in the electoral district on Wednesday, Craig said the PDP is coming to bring a new level of representation to the entire island and implored all to get on board.

He said the electoral district and more so the island of Tobago is suffering for “good leadership,” saying leadership can be defined in many ways.

“A PDP administration is going to lead with passion, we’re going to lead with heart, and we are going to lead as though we understand – because we do understand the challenges that the people in this electoral district face from day to day.”

He said there is more to being a representative than “paving roads and building box drains.”

“Sometimes when you look at the existing culture of leadership in our Tobago House of Assembly, the modus operandi seems to suggest that you run the district for four years and when you see and hear the sound of change, you get busy and you start to pave, you start to mix concrete. I’m seeing in some districts they are even washing the pavements.

"There is fear in the air because the PDP is here, and the message is clear. We have nothing to fear except for fear itself. We are committed to leading this Tobago in a totally different direction – in a better direction.”

He said in his walkabouts, people are disenfranchised and fed up with the promises.

“This is the first time that I am sitting in this chair, this is the first time that I am approaching you, and they would say 'We’ve heard that over and over again.'”

He added: “The challenge is this – the red brigade just keeps changing personalities, but the system remains constant. Their campaigning strategies, their leadership strategies – everything remains constant, and they believe by changing personnel we’ll have a different result.

"But we need to reject the entire culture that comes with the brigade. We need to embrace a leadership system that is born of Tobago, by Tobago people and for the people of Tobago.

"We understand best how to take Tobago to the next level, we understand our people. We need not put our support behind an organisation that has to take instructions from Trinidad – before they make the simplest decisions, they must consult their leaders in Trinidad. The leaders of the PDP – they are resident, they are accessible, they are available.”

He said in his conversations with constituents, "I really enjoy the repartee and I enjoy the suggestions that are coming forward and I must give the assurance that we would not be developing any community without your interjection, without your input, so that when we build, we build together. Under the PDP-led THA, we are going to ensure that the community is a part.”

In endorsing Craig’s candidacy, deputy leader Farley Augustine, who is the party’s hopeful for chief secretary and the candidate for Parlatuvier/L’Anse Fourmi/Speyside, said, “Tobago needs a fresh start.

“Not necessarily a fresh face, as we were told in the past, but a fresh start. This fresh start is not so that we can necessarily condemn everything in the past, but it is a fresh start so that we can achieve better than what we’ve had in the past.”

He added: “It is not enough to believe that we have done our very best, it is not Tobago to believe that we can’t do better, and I keep preaching this sermon everywhere, that Tobago can perform better, and my goal, our goal, comrade Craig’s goal, is that we can create for Tobago an example that even neighbouring Trinidad can become envious of. I want when Trinidadians look at us four years from now, they must say, 'No, something wrong with we down here – how Tobago could develop so fast and we so far behind?'

"Our goal is not to become even with Trinidad but become better than Trinidad. Our goal is not to compare ourselves with the rest of the Caribbean and become even with them. Our goal is to become better than them.”