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MINISTER in the Housing Ministry Anil Roberts has predicted a clean sweep for the Tobago People's Party (TPP) in the January 12 Tobago House of Assembly (THA) elections.
Roberts made his prediction during his contribution to debate on the Finance Bill 2025 in the Senate on December 9.
Referring to contributions made earlier in the debate by Opposition PNM senators, Roberts dismissed their claims that since the April 28 general election, everything that the UNC has done in government has been bad.
The UNC won the election with 26 seats. The PNM won 13 seats and the TPP won two.
There is no official coalition between the UNC and the TPP but the latter's MPs sit next to UNC MPs in the backbenches in the House of Representatives which are normally only occupied by government MPs.
Traditionally, MPs who are not part of the government occupy the benches opposite from government MPs in the House. Only the PNM's 13 MPs currently occupy these spaces.
Roberts said sarcastically, "I expect the people of Tobago on January 12 will bring the PNM back."
In the December 2021 THA election, the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) defeated the PNM 14-1.
THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine was a member of the PDP at the time. Augustine split from the PDP in 2022 after a political fallout with Duke. Thirteen THA members who were elected under the PDP in the December 2021 election resigned from the party to form the TPP in August 2023.
Duke recently expressed the PDP's support for the TPP in the January 12 election.
The PNM is expected to present its slate of candidates for the election in Tobago on December 13.
Roberts said if the PNM's claims about the UNC were correct, "we should see a resurgence of that red."
But he maintained the UNC continues to be in good standing with the majority of the population.
On that basis, he said, "We shouldn't see the 15-0 (TPP win) that coming. The 15-0 coming because the people know that the PNM is just about their friends, family and financiers. They did not care about the people. They did not care about the children."
Roberts said the people continue to show their love and unwavering support for Prime Minister and UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
He rejected any claim that Persad-Bissessar disliked any group of people in TT.
"Kamla Persad-Bissessar loves culture more than any PNM and supports each and every bit of culture...every ethnicity...every race."
Roberts said, "That is why she is prime minister and will remain (prime minister)."
Addressing temporary Opposition Senator Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, who was last in Parliament 15 years ago, before he lost his Chaguanas East seat in the May 24, 2010 general election which the PNM lost, Roberts said it did not matter who the PNM brought back into Parliament or if it even attempted to resurrect its founder Dr Eric Williams.
Government senators thumped their desks as Roberts added the population is fed up of the PNM and will never allow it to govern TT again.
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