Two po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say Wat­son Duke’s sud­den sup­port of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) may not give the par­ty the boost he be­lieves it will. While both agree his en­dorse­ment is sig­nif­i­cant, they warn that the re­al test is not Duke’s words but whether he still has a vot­er base that can in­flu­ence the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that Duke’s an­nounce­ment rais­es more ques­tions than an­swers. He be­lieves it is far from clear whether the PDP leader is bring­ing any mean­ing­ful po­lit­i­cal strength back to Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

“But the ques­tion is, how much sup­port are you bring­ing? It is not abun­dant­ly clear that he is bring­ing the kind of sup­port that Far­ley needs. Far­ley may think that the sup­port that he has with­in his own par­ty is good enough,” James said. James added that Au­gus­tine must de­cide whether he even wants Duke on the TPP plat­form.