Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 13/Jan 03:12

Augustine misplaces ID card, but says voting smooth

THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine said voting was smooth at his polling station despite misplacing his National ID card. Augustine said he was confident that he will be returning to office. Augustine spoke with the media as he emerged from the polling station at Speyside Anglican School, after voting as consecutive number 115, shortly after midday on January 12. He said the process for him was “pretty smooth” considering he could not locate his national ID card. “It is something that I always misplace. I was trying to dig in very bag, in every wallet, in every shirt pocket, in every suit pocket to see if I could find it, but I didn’t, and so I trusted the process. I went in the line, I did an affirmation, they checked in the binder, and it was there with my photograph. "Granted my father and I have the same name, they were able to differentiate between the one born in 1985 and the one born in 1958 – a pretty simple process.” He said information received from the agents thus far was mixed as some areas reported a high voter turnout. A higher voter turnout than what was experienced in the April 2025 general election, he said, was expected, as more Tobagonians tend to vote in the THA elections. “That’s because the people of Tobago tend to feel more intertwined, their lives much more impacted by the operations of the Tobago House of Assembly than the central government.” He said he predicts that his party will give the opposition a 15-nil defeat. “The hope is that we will continue to build out the greatest little island on the planet. It is what we projected in 2021. We married that with the UN sustainable development goals and how Tobago could get there; how as a small island developing state we can become competitive; how our people can be heads and shoulders above regional counterparts and other small islands in the world. "Of course as a small island, we will continue to face impacts of global pressures including climate change and what that means for our environment and the cost of responding to that. Of course, as a small island we have little to no say in terms of global affairs and of course the machinations of larger metropolitan powers and it has to be beyond survival for us in Tobago.” He said he would love for all the votes to come in his favour, but noted a democracy means a contest between opposing views and ideas. He said the blueprint unveiled by his party, the TPP, is a cut above the rest. "It has to be about how does the island purposefully charts a course that leads to it becoming the greatest little island on the planet." 'Radar a non-factor' Augustine said the military-grade US radar, installed at the ANR Robinson International Airport in November, was pushed by the PNM to be a key feature, but he did not feel it worked. The presence of the AN/TPS-80 ground/air task-oriented radar (G/ATOR), built by Northrop Grumman, sparked controversy as the PNM said it had placed a target on Tobagonians' backs while even Augustine said if he had the choice he would not allow it to be on the island. Minister of Defence Wayne Sturge, during a meeting in Tobago, assured Augustine that the radar would not be used by the US to help attack any nation. On January 3 the US military went into Venezuela and captured its president Nicolas Maduro. Almost 100 people were killed in the operation. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has denied TT involvement in the operation. Augustine said, “I don’t think it is what Tobagonians voted on. Based on my interactions with Tobagonians, their key issues among many others are youth unemployment or under employment, the requirement or the need to have constant communication and that sort of intimate relationships with area representatives and what it means to be an area representative versus being a secretary or a member of the executive. "People had some environmental issues, but I don’t think that featured as much as my political opponents wished it would have featured.” He said he had no reason to be worried about the results. “I think our systems are working. We are monitoring and evaluating.” The post Augustine misplaces ID card, but says voting smooth appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.