Jack, lawyers planning TOP’s counter-move

Yesterday’s Tobago Organisation of the People’s “next move” national executive meeting had to be put off to a date to be fixed, as party leader Ashworth Jack had to meet for most of the day with lawyers seeking advice on whether to file an ex-parte injunction against two members who took legal action against the party last weekend.

That earlier legal move, filed by members Gladstone Solomon and Trevor Gardiner, effectively halted the party’s fourth executive elections on Sunday. Solomon and Gardiner filed a High Court injunction seeking to prevent the executive elections from proceeding. After Sunday’s aborted proceedings the party scheduled a special meeting for yesterday to discuss the next move. That meeting did not take place, however, as Jack met with lawyers instead.

Sources say neither was a new date set for the crisis meeting. Reports are that yesterday there was a virtual shouting match among members both for and against Jack. “It was horrible, the worst I have seen in years,” another source said. Sources say the party remains divided and many want Jack to step down, especially after the TOP’s humiliating 12-nil defeat by the People’s National Movement in January’s Tobago House of Assembly election. Jack was unavailable for comment yesterday as he was meeting with lawyers.

Source: Guadian

Legal Actions Against TOP's Internal Election

Leader of the Tobago Oragnisation of the People
Ashworth Jack

It was Hochoy Charles in 2010 who accused the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) of rigging their internal elections to favour certain candidates. Now once again, mere days away from their internal election their executive has been faced with a barrage of legal pre-action letters. 

A news clipping carried by other media indicated that the TOP has been issued a pre-action  protocol  letter which calls for tomorrow’s  internal TOP elections to be stopped. 

Chairman Trevor Gardiner and secretary Gladstone Solomon of the TOP Hope/John Dial Action Group in a letter dated May 31st gave instructions to attorneys Bijili Lalla and Om Lalla to postpone the elections. 

The pre-action protocol letter stated: “We are instructed to request you to give an undertaking to postpone the election carded for Sunday 2nd June 2013, until the constitution is amended to provide for the ‘one man one vote’ system and all members are permitted to participate in the process. The procedural irregularity and illegal act of holding the election in the proposed manner is detrimental to the TOP and its credibility.” The letter also  stated: “Should you fail to accede to our request, we will have no alternative but to seek legal redress from the High Court for injunctive relief to stay the said election.”

TOP was then given 24 hours to communicate on the way forward, and copies of the letter were  also sent to political leader of the TOP Ashworth Jack, chairperson of the elections committee Cherry Ann Rollocks-Hackett and TOP party chairman Lionel Coker. 

Only recently Justice Minister and chairman of the TOP’s constitutional amendment committee Christlyn Moore, in a letter dated May 21st to the party, expressed her reservations about Sunday’s election. 

Her letter requested: “That the election of the executive carded for 2nd June be aborted.”

In addition, TOP member Anslem Richards has also threatened legal action against the party. Richards who contested the Tobago House of Assembly election for Roxborough /Delaford on January 21, was rejected as a contestant for the position of chairman by the party citing  his financial standing within the TOP.

A portion of Richards letter which was written on May 31st states:

“Failure to honour my rights of membership as guaranteed under the constitution of the TOP will result in legal proceedings being instituted.” 

Efforts by some media groups to contact Jack and Coker proved to be futile, and calls to their mobile phones were not returned.

Confident Toppin takes on Coker

Vernella Allyne Toppin

Tobago-East Representative Vernella Alleyne Toppin is not yet ready to ride out into the political sunset. In fact, the prominent politician is indicating that she is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the Tobago Organisation of the People continues to be relevant to the people of Tobago. Toppin has mounted a challenge against the incumbent chairman of the party, Lionel Coker. The party holds its internal election on June 1. She is backed by a team of individuals, even though the former university lecturer would not define it as a slate. Toppin’s challenge to Coker comes at a time when some within the party are calling for a total revamp of the party’s executive following the crushing defeat by the party, which was once poised the dominate the political landscape in Tobago.

Asked about her basis for running for the arduous task of the main administrative officer in the party, Toppin said it was the necessary at this time. Speaking with Tobago News in an exclusive interview on her porch at her residence in Plantations, she explained that when the results were announced on January 21, she was shocked at the outcome and immediately went into investigative mode to determine from the electorate, the reasons why the party lost so significantly. 

The research, she said, showed that the loss by the party was linked to a number of reasons, pointing to the fact that their strategies had not covered all of the bases and therefore the party had not presented the best strategy. “There were weaknesses,” she insisted. Toppin said she had suggested after the election, that everyone on the Executive should vacate their position and leave it up to the members to elect a new executive to lead the party.

“I decided that I would throw my lot in by holding a position of influence where I can make a difference; my ideas, my strengths, my abilities can be further utilised by the party in order to support the party in a stronger way,” Toppin said. She maintained that it was the action groups of the party who selected and nomination the members of her team in the election.

Toppin told Tobago News, she found the Executive was not up to the task that we was before it. “I thought that all along, I thought that more than a year now,” she remarked. It was on this premise that she agreed to lead a team to ‘give the party a better chance moving forward’.

Toppin, who presently holds the position of Minister in the Ministry of the People and Social Development, expressed confidence that she can be a productive party chairman. “I think I have the ability to be party chairman and to be very productive and to be very decisive and insightful and able to carry the burden,” Toppin said.

Toppin’s relationship with political leader Ashworth Jack has always been questioned, with some speculating that this turbulent relationship would have been the basis of the prime minister’s decision to move her from the Ministry of Tobago Development. The Member of Parliament however, adamantly disagreed with this perspective. “I have never had a bad relationship with the leader of the TOP.

I have always supported him. I have never disrespected him or purported to prefer that he would not be the leader,” the minister reiterated. “Our leader chooses his alliances, so it’s not that we have an antagonistic relationship, we have a leader/subordinate relationship,” she continued. As for her association with Coker, Toppin described it as ‘a working relationship’.

“We have hard work ahead of us. We just have to bring all our strengths together to come up with winning strategies. There are areas in Tobago that we can concentrate on to make a huge impact. We are poised to dominate,” she stated.

She is optimistic that she is the better individual for the job, touting her experience in parliament, locally and internationally. “I can articulate the policies, programmes and practices of the TOP. I am a Member of Parliament. I have an international experience dealing with people and negotiating. I have national and regional experience, 18 years as a university lecturer and over 40 years as a teacher. I am a politician in the true sense of the word. I can match my counterparts in Trinidad, I know I can match them academically and other wise. This should increase my appeal to the membership,” she articulated.

Source:Tobagonews