Tobago hosts conversations with political candidates

POLITICAL candidates vying for election for the Tobago East and West seats on August 10 will be part of virtual townhall meetings to be aired on Tobago Channel 5 from August 2-4. The historic event has been organised by Tobago Civil Society, comprising the Tobago Writers Guild, Tobago Entrepreneurs, Youth Vote Matters TT and Environment Tobago.

Dubbed Public Conversation with the Candidates, the initiative gets under way Sunday afternoon at 5.45 pm with three candidates. The conversations can be viewed on Tobago Channel 5 Facebook page and listened on Pulse 89.5 FM.

Opening the event will be Progressive Democratic Patriots's (PDP) Tashia Grace Burris (Tobago West) at 6pm, followed by Ricardo Phillip of Class Action Reform Movement at 7pm and PNM's Ayanna Webster-Roy (Tobago East) at 8pm. The moderators are Julien Skeete and Latoyaa Roberts.

The candidates will get a certain period of time to speak about themselves and their plans for the constituency. This will be followed by an interactive segment where the public can challenge candidates on issues via calls, Zoom or Facebook live. Each person has two minutes to pose their questions or concerns to the candidate and answers are also limited to two minutes.

"We don't want no long speeches, just concrete stuff," one of the organisers told Newsday on Sunday.

The public conversations start at 7.15 pm on Monday and Tuesday, with other candidates expected to attend.

The event is endorsed by the Jet Ski Association and Environmental Research Institute Charlotteville.