Yearbook 2011
Trinidad and Tobago. According to Countryaah official site, a limited state of emergency was introduced in several areas in August in an attempt to put a stop to a violent crime wave. The decision was made when eleven murders had been committed in just a few days. According to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the murders were triggered by the police making several huge seizures of drugs, resulting in multimillion losses for drug leagues. The state of emergency meant a curfew at night and increased powers for the police to intervene in criminal suspicion. Visit ABBREVIATIONFINDER for the acronym of TTO that stands for the country of Trinidad and Tobago.
In November, police said they had revealed plans to murder Persad-Bissesses. Twelve people were arrested, including several military and police. The prime minister himself considered that the murder plans were a direct result of the state of emergency. She also promised to continue to take a hard look at organized crime.
Additional elections in 1994 showed Manning the unpopularity of the government, as the ruling PNM lost 3 of the 4 seats in the elections.
At the same time, the then-Prime Minister Robinson’s amnesty had granted participants in the coup attempt in July 1990 – 114 members of the Islamic group Jamaat-al-Muslimeen – canceled. Still, this was a symbolic cancellation, as the court ruled that the accused should neither be prosecuted nor arrested.
In a situation where the economy and politics were in better condition, Manning decided to print elections for November 1995 – a year ahead of time. But the strategy failed. The ONM had to settle for 17 seats, the same as the opposition party UNC led by Basdeo Panday.
Panday allied with the NAR and thus became the first Trinidad & Tobago head of government to descend from emigrants from India.
In 1996, the Government Coalition adopted a balanced budget that reduced spending. The government entrusted a consortium with the task of building a factory that from 1999 was to supply the United States and Spain with natural gas.
In early 1997, the PNM lost further strength in parliament when two of its members joined the government coalition as “detached”. The opposition thus had only 15 seats against the 21 of the government coalition.
On February 14, the candidate of the government and former prime minister ANR Robinson was elected president as he received 46 of the electoral college votes. Opposition candidate Anthony Lucky got just 18. On March 19, Robinson formally took over the post.
History
In the nineties the political life of the country continued to be characterized by the unresolved question of Tobago’s autonomy, by the persistence of the claims of black Muslims, while the contrast between Blacks and Indians – the two main ethnic groups – still found in the political dialectic the his well-established channel of expression. The PNM (People’s National Movement) government, weakened by the economic crisis, social conflicts and the emergence of serious internal dissensions, was forced to resign in October 1995. In the early elections, which took place the following month, the two largest parties – the PNM and the UNC (United National Congress) – both won 17 seats, while the NAR (National Alliance for Reconstruction), Tobago’s main party in favor of wider island autonomy, won two seats. The election results led to the emergence of a coalition government between the UNC and the NAR, chaired by Labor leader B. Panday.
In foreign policy, after a phase of tensions with Venezuela over the delimitation of their respective fishing areas, an agreement was signed in December 1997 between the two countries. In the meantime, relations with India intensified, culminating in the visit of Indian Prime Minister AB Vajpayee in February 1999.