The find­ings of an on­go­ing track­ing opin­ion sur­vey be­ing con­duct­ed by the North Amer­i­can Caribbean Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NAC­TA) in To­ba­go finds the PNM lead­ing the op­po­si­tion PDP for the Jan­u­ary 25 THA elec­tions. The PNM is like­ly to re­tain of­fice for an un­prece­dent­ed sixth con­sec­u­tive term in To­ba­go eas­i­ly win­ning a ma­jor­i­ty, if not all, of the 12 seats up for grab.

The lat­est NAC­TA poll was con­duct­ed through Fri­day to de­ter­mine pop­u­lar sup­port for the par­ties as well as to ob­tain views on the is­sues im­pact­ing on the lives of To­bag­o­ni­ans. Re­spon­dents were in­ter­viewed in all of the 12 con­stituen­cies.

Based on the find­ings of the sur­vey, the PNM is lead­ing in nine seats with ma­jor­i­ty sup­port and PDP one seat with two seats a dead heat. The PNM is ahead of the PDP with very com­fort­able mar­gins in sev­en of the nine seats where it leads. It has small­er mar­gins of lead in two oth­er seats. It is not im­pos­si­ble for the PNM to make a clean sweep of all 12 seats. But the poll finds that in­cum­bent Wat­son Duke is ahead in his seat of Rox­bor­ough/De­laford where new­com­er Neil Beck­les is putting up a strong chal­lenge to un­seat him.

The poll finds that the three in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates are not lead­ing in any of the seats. How­ev­er, Dr Denise Tsoi-a-Fatt-An­gus, the for­mer PNM speak­er of the THA, has some trac­tion in her bid for the Scar­bor­ough/Calder Hall seat. She has been mount­ing a house-to-house cam­paign. The PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Tracey David­son Ce­les­tine is com­fort­ably ahead in her Lam­beau/Sig­nal Hill seat against PDP’s Wayne Clark.

The race is heat­ing up with more than two weeks of cam­paign­ing still re­main­ing. There is an el­e­ment of ex­cite­ment among vot­ers as they ob­serve what they per­ceive as “in-fight­ing” in both camps be­tween po­ten­tial lead­ers for Chief Sec­re­tary po­si­tion. Vot­ers say Act­ing Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis (in­cum­bent of Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant) and Tracey Ce­les­tine seem to be at log­ger­head in the PNM camp while in the PDP, Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Wat­son Duke are fight­ing over lead­er­ship. Con­ven­tion dic­tates that the leader of a par­ty usu­al­ly be­comes chief sec­re­tary once the par­ty wins the elec­tions. A ma­jor­i­ty feels Tracey Ce­les­tine will make a bet­ter Chief Sec­re­tary than Wat­son Duke.

The poll finds that in­cum­bent Far­ley Au­gus­tine is strug­gling to sur­vive, fac­ing a stiff chal­lenge from young Ro­ry Dil­lon of the PNM in the Char­lot­teville Spey­side Par­latu­vi­er L’Anse Four­mi seat. Box­il Bai­ley of PNM and Dr Faith Yis­rael (PDP) are al­so locked in a close fight in Belle Gar­dens Good­wood.

Asked which par­ty they think will win the elec­tion, 59 per cent said PNM be­cause “it is bet­ter or­gan­ised and has greater cam­paign re­sources than PDP.” The PNM is very ac­tive on the ground where­as there has not been much of a PDP pres­ence in terms of cam­paign para­pher­na­lia or ac­tiv­i­ties. On­ly 33 per cent of the re­spon­dents said PDP has a fight­ing chance to eke out a nar­row vic­to­ry. But such an out­come seems very un­like­ly. The re­main­ing re­spon­dents (eight per cent) did not of­fer an opin­ion on which par­ty like­ly to pre­vail. A ma­jor­i­ty of vot­ers say they are vot­ing PNM be­cause “it is bet­ter pre­pared to tack­le de­vel­op­ment is­sues.”

Ap­a­thy runs very high among ex­as­per­at­ed vot­ers with a ma­jor­i­ty say­ing they have no in­ter­est in the elec­tion. Asked what is­sues would in­flu­ence how they vote, po­ten­tial vot­ers said they are con­cerned about the cost of liv­ing, drug abuse, in­fra­struc­ture, au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go, agri­cul­ture, re­la­tions with Trinidad, fer­ry and air bridge, among oth­ers. There are al­so vo­cal com­plaints about in­ad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion from some of the THA reps. PNM In­cum­bents with poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion have not been re-nom­i­nat­ed to face the elec­torate.