As To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal tem­per­a­ture ris­es ahead of the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion, small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties are qui­et­ly but steadi­ly ramp­ing up prepa­ra­tions, each aim­ing to of­fer an al­ter­na­tive to the is­land’s tra­di­tion­al po­lit­i­cal gi­ants.

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus says this elec­tion would be very dif­fer­ent from the April 29 gen­er­al elec­tion, when her par­ty’s fo­cus was main­ly to “get its feet wet.” She said the IDA en­tered that race to sig­nal its pres­ence and re­con­nect with vot­ers rather than to win, ex­plain­ing that at the time, the po­lit­i­cal mood was sim­ply about “get­ting rid of the PNM" and "ten per cent wage in­crease."

“This elec­tion is dif­fer­ent,” she said.