SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

For Trinidad and To­ba­go, Sep­tem­ber 24 is more than a pub­lic hol­i­day. It is a day of re­flec­tion, cel­e­bra­tion and na­tion­al pride, mark­ing the coun­try’s jour­ney from British colo­nial rule to be­com­ing a Re­pub­lic.

This year, 2026, Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) marks its gold­en Re­pub­lic Day.

When the first Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr Er­ic Williams, took T&T from un­der British rule on Au­gust 31, 1962, there was still a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly lin­ger­ing piece of the puz­zle to be fit­ted square­ly in­to the big­ger pic­ture he had vi­su­alised.

There was a Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al, Sir Solomon Ho­choy, who was suc­ceed­ed in 1972 by Sir El­lis Clarke, but that sta­tus seemed out of place. To com­plete­ly abol­ish the Monar­chy, it be­came nec­es­sary to make a change.

A new Con­sti­tu­tion was com­plet­ed and adopt­ed in 1976, which saw T&T of­fi­cial­ly be­come a Re­pub­lic State on Au­gust 1, and Sir El­lis Clarke smooth­ly tran­si­tioned as T&T’s very first Pres­i­dent.

He came with a strong mes­sage cen­tred on na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, civic du­ty and the con­sti­tu­tion­al oath. He touched on the pledge of al­le­giance, where cit­i­zens were called up­on to pri­vate­ly and col­lec­tive­ly pledge true faith, loy­al­ty and al­le­giance to T&T rather than a dis­tant monarch.

He al­so spoke of ser­vice and well-be­ing, where, as man­dat­ed by Sec­tion 37 of the new Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion, he ded­i­cat­ed him­self to the ser­vice and well-be­ing of all cit­i­zens of T&T, there­by en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to em­brace the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that come with de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­dom.

Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Pres­i­dent acts in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Cab­i­net, and the Prime Min­is­ter and the Pres­i­dent work with each oth­er. The Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion al­so es­tab­lish­es a Cab­i­net sys­tem of Gov­ern­ment and pro­vides for a com­pre­hen­sive set of fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights and free­doms for all cit­i­zens of T&T. It al­so calls for elec­tions to be held every five years.

A Re­pub­lic State or Na­tion means the supreme pow­er is vest­ed in all cit­i­zens en­ti­tled to vote, the elec­torate, and is ex­er­cised by rep­re­sen­ta­tives elect­ed di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly by them and re­spon­si­ble to them.

Pres­i­dent Clarke was al­so very in­stru­men­tal in shap­ing T&T’s 1962 In­de­pen­dence Con­sti­tu­tion.

The stu­dent of Saint Mary’s Col­lege (CIC) won an Is­land Schol­ar­ship in 1938 to pur­sue Maths, mi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed King­dom, where he en­joyed ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, and earned a Bach­e­lor of Laws de­gree.

With a pas­sion for pol­i­tics, law and or­der, when he re­turned in 1941, he start­ed his law prac­tice, kick-start­ing a po­lit­i­cal ca­reer which took shape from 1954. He be­came So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al, Deputy Colo­nial Sec­re­tary and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al un­til he suc­ceed­ed T&T’s first Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al in 1976.

In 1972, Queen Eliz­a­beth II award­ed him a Knight Grand Cross of the Or­der of the Com­pan­ion of St Michael and St George.

Sir El­lis Clarke died at 93 on De­cem­ber 30, 2010, and the chain of suc­ces­sors there­after is Their Ex­cel­len­cies Noor Has­sanali (1987-1997), A.N.R. Robin­son (1997-2003), Maxwell Richards (2003-2013), An­tho­ny Car­mona (2013-2018), Paula-Mae Weekes (2018-2023), and cur­rent­ly Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo (2023-).

Though T&T be­came a Re­pub­lic on Au­gust 1, 1976, the hol­i­day is cel­e­brat­ed on Sep­tem­ber 24 be­cause that was the date the Par­lia­ment first met un­der the new Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion.

Re­pub­lic Day was re­moved from the of­fi­cial cal­en­dar of pub­lic hol­i­days from 1999 to 2001 to make room for Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Shouter Lib­er­a­tion Day. The hol­i­day was re­in­stat­ed in 2002.

For the Re­pub­lic Day hol­i­day, cit­i­zens en­joy a re­lax­ing day en­gag­ing in his­toric, cul­tur­al and oth­er leisure ac­tiv­i­ties. From 6 pm, at a for­mal in­vi­ta­tion-on­ly oc­ca­sion, the Pres­i­dent ho­n­ours spe­cial­ly nom­i­nat­ed cit­i­zens by pre­sent­ing them with Na­tion­al Awards, with the high­est be­ing the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, award­ed in Gold on­ly.