THA Minority Leader Kelvon Morris has a suggestion for the name of the new party THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine is busy forming: the FSP – Farley's Saltfish Party.
He gave the suggestion in the Minority Report programme on Tobago Updates on Wednesday, adding that people are trying to misrepresent how true political parties are formed.
On April 4, Augustine said a name, symbol and colour for a new, people-centred political party in Tobago should be finalised by April 17.
Augustine spoke to reporters after he and other THA executive members met for almost five hours with supporters at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex on April 4.
The 13 executive members including Augustine and deputy Chief Secretary Dr Faith BYisrael resigned from the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) on December 5, and declared themselves independents in the THA. This after a public falling out between the executive and PDP leader Watson Duke.
Morris said some people are now trying to “represent or misrepresent” how parties are formed noting that one should try to understand the history of the PNM.
“It was a rallying call of all and sundry that encompassed the very fabric of what the PNM party is about. The PNM just isn’t a party that somebody decided, 'we going to form.' So when I am hearing someone purporting that this new approach is something so new and bottom up, you cant get more bottom up than the PNM.”
Morris said with the information he has, without a doubt, he knows the most suitable name for such an entity. “The most suitable name for this party is the Farley Saltfish Party (FSP).
He said it is clear that Augustine recognises he does not have the competence, ability, strategy or the experience to treat with Tobago’s governance issues hence he has now gone into default mode of blaming the PNM.
“To simply blame the PNM and utilise this blanket statement that he inherited such a mess, is simply untrue."
Morris said that Augustine claimed that for 21 years the PNM had done nothing for Tobago, "when in reality Tobago prospered over the last 21 years." Morris claimed that under the PNM, unemployment fell from 13 to five per cent.
“You had a situation where you had two secondary schools, the PNM was able to move it to over five or six secondary schools. You had a situation where you had only three or four functional health centres, the PNM was able to put health centres in every community," Morris said.
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