Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke has fi­nal­ly bro­ken months of si­lence on his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture to pub­licly de­clare his sup­port for Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP). It is a dra­mat­ic turn for the man who once led the PDP to a his­toric land­slide vic­to­ry, on­ly to watch the par­ty col­lapse af­ter a bit­ter fall­out with Au­gus­tine him­self.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the PDP’s Scar­bor­ough head of­fice, Duke asked the hand­ful of loy­al sup­port­ers who re­mained with him—his “Spar­tans”—to ral­ly be­hind Au­gus­tine ahead of the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tions.

But while he an­nounced his sup­port, Duke re­fused to say what role the PDP would play in the up­com­ing race or whether the par­ty would con­test any seats at all. He of­fered no clar­i­ty on his own cam­paign and avoid­ed all ques­tions about whether the PDP is now op­er­at­ing as an in­for­mal arm of the TPP.