PDP on THA polls: We leave everything in the hands of God

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Progressive Democratic Patriots deputy leader Farley Augustine says he was happy with the high turnout of voters yesterday as the polls opened for the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election.

Speaking to the media after casting his ballot at the St John’s Speyside Anglican Primary school, he said there were 360 voters in the polling division before noon.

“It means that people are actively participating, people are anxious, I feel the sense of urgency, I feel nice breezes of change coming in our direction, so we leave everything in the hands of God and of course, the remaining members of the electorate who have to vote sometime this afternoon,” Augustine said.

He said there were no irregularities reported to him in the voting process.

Asked if he was confident of the PDP’s chances at the polls, Augustine joked that he was a politician, not a prophet.

But he expressed confidence in the high voter turnout.

“In the January election, the top five districts with the highest voter turnout were all won by the PDP, so scientifically that could give you a pattern of behaviour in terms of what is possible with a high voter turnout,” Augustine said.

He said with the high turnout, he was expecting the island’s voter turnout to be above 50 per cent in this election.

Asked why the PDP did not attend the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) demonstration of their electronic data collection last Saturday, Farley said the party had raised several concerns about the use of the system that were not addressed.

“Our objection had nothing with of the implementation of an electronic aspect to the voting process. We simply wanted to get from the EBC what measures would be implemented to safeguard the data they would be collecting. It is one thing to mine data, it’s another to secure the data that they mine,” Augustine said.

He said the party is willing to work with the EBC in the future to find more efficient means of data collection for elections.

Duke: No revelry

Meanwhile, PDP leader Watson Duke urged his party’s supporters not to engage in revelry when election results came out later on in the day yesterday.

Speaking to Guardian Media briefly earlier in the day, Duke said supporters would be free to celebrate though.

“There is no need to revel but there is something to celebrate, revelling and celebration is two different things,” Duke said.