RYAN BA­CHOO

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

It could be said each Pres­i­dent has their own chal­lenges to meet in the ever-chang­ing land­scape of T&T.

Over 46 years of be­ing a Re­pub­lic, the Na­tion has had six Pres­i­dents serv­ing as Head of State.

As times changed, so did the chal­lenges of the job. Though the head of state po­si­tion in T&T is an in­de­pen­dent one, that cit­i­zens of­ten like to be­lieve is above pol­i­tics, some Pres­i­dents found them­selves at the fore­front of na­tion­al head­lines em­broiled in the po­lit­i­cal di­vide.

As the Elec­toral Col­lege gets set to se­lect T&T’s sev­enth pres­i­dent, we look back at some of the defin­ing mo­ments of the six Pres­i­dents that have served T&T.

Paula-Mae Weekes—

The Mer­it List fi­as­co

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes was T&T’s first fe­male pres­i­dent but she al­so cre­at­ed some un­want­ed his­to­ry as well.

For the first time in the na­tion’s his­to­ry, there was at­tempt to re­mover a pres­i­dent from the of­fice they oc­cu­pied. It fol­lowed months of a mer­it list fi­as­co that still hasn’t end­ed.

As the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) be­gan its search for a new Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in 2021, al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence through the process in­to dis­re­pute in Sep­tem­ber.

It was al­leged that on Au­gust 12, a meet­ing be­tween Pres­i­dent Weekes, a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial and the then chair­man of the PSC, Bliss Seep­er­sad, had met at Pres­i­dent’s House to dis­cuss the Mer­it List.

The Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial al­leged­ly sub­mit­ted in­for­ma­tion on then Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Gary Grif­fith, in an at­tempt to sub­vert the process.

The Pres­i­dent’s Of­fice ac­cepts the nom­i­na­tion list and then sub­mits it Par­lia­ment.

Weekes found her­self em­broiled in na­tion­al con­tro­ver­sy when it came to light that a mer­it-list was sub­mit­ted to her on Au­gust 11, 2021, and sub­se­quent­ly with­drawn a day lat­er af­ter the meet­ing be­tween the trio.

Af­ter months of con­tro­ver­sy, the elec­toral col­lege met on Oc­to­ber 21st, 2021 to vote on re­mov­ing Weekes from of­fice. The in­de­pen­dent bench did not sup­port the mo­tion which re­quired a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty, and ul­ti­mate­ly failed with a fi­nal vote of 24 in favour and 47 against.

An­tho­ny Car­mona—

Wine

Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona’s time as head of state was marred by sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sial is­sues, none more so than the pur­chase of wine and whether he had used the ser­vices of an em­ploy­ee’s com­pa­ny to do so in Sep­tem­ber, 2016.

Car­mona was al­so faced with ques­tions of nepo­tism and whether he had fam­i­ly mem­bers work­ing at his of­fice. How­ev­er, it was the wine fi­as­co that ul­ti­mate­ly soured and stained his pres­i­den­tial term. In re­spond­ing to the al­le­ga­tions that a prop­er ten­der­ing process was not used, Car­mona said they utilised “a well-es­tab­lished reg­is­tered lo­cal com­pa­ny to be the agent who fa­cil­i­tat­ed the pur­chase and im­por­ta­tion of such qual­i­ty wines” but gave no de­tails about the com­pa­ny that was used. He said at a press con­fer­ence the cost of the wine pur­chased in 2014 “was er­ro­neous­ly stat­ed in the me­dia as $1,000,000,” but ac­tu­al­ly amount­ed to $1,483,638.40.

Maxwell Richards—

Dis­miss­ing Nizam Mo­hammed

Be­fore the Mer­it List, there was an­oth­er PSC fi­as­co. On April 11, 2011, pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards re­voked the ap­point­ment of Nizam Mo­hammed as chair­man and mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. Richards dis­missed Mo­hammed on the grounds that he failed to per­form his du­ties in a re­spon­si­ble and time­ly man­ner and demon­strat­ed a lack of com­pe­tence.

It fol­lowed Mo­hammed’s promise to work to ad­dress an al­leged eth­nic im­bal­ance in the Po­lice Ser­vice. Pres­i­dent Richards’ ac­tion had mixed re­ac­tions in the po­lit­i­cal spec­trum.

Mo­hammed chal­lenged Richards’ de­ci­sion in court. Days be­fore Richards was due to demit of­fice, the de­ci­sion he made was over­turned in the San Fer­nan­do High Court.

Civ­il Court judge, Ju­dith Jones, de­clared his 2011 de­ci­sion to re­voke the ap­point­ment of Nizam Mo­hammed was “null, void and of no ef­fect.”

Mo­hammed, how­ev­er, was not able to re­as­sume his po­si­tion at the com­mis­sion since Prof Ramesh De­osaran sat as chair­man.

ANR Robin­son—

18-18 dead­lock

Fol­low­ing the pre­ma­ture dis­so­lu­tion of par­lia­ment on Oc­to­ber 13, 2001, the Gen­er­al Elec­tions in T&T were held on De­cem­ber 10, for all 36 seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

UNC po­lit­i­cal leader, Bas­deo Pan­day, was forced to call elec­tions af­ter three UNC min­is­ters vot­ed against their gov­ern­ment’s bills in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, lead­ing to a leg­isla­tive cri­sis.

At the elec­tions, both the UNC and the PNM won 18 seats each leav­ing the coun­try in lim­bo as to which par­ty will form the next gov­ern­ment.

On De­cem­ber 24 that year, Pres­i­dent Robin­son chose Man­ning to be the next Prime Min­is­ter and he was sworn in the same day. Robin­son said his de­ci­sion was based “on moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues.”

Noor Has­sanali—

1990 at­tempt­ed coup

Pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali was head of state dur­ing one of T&T’s most tur­bu­lent pe­ri­ods - the at­tempt­ed coup of 1990. As the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen led a coup at­tempt when an Is­lamist group bombed the na­tion’s po­lice head­quar­ters, stormed the Par­lia­ment and took the prime min­is­ter and his Cab­i­net hostage, Has­sanali was vis­it­ing Lon­don at the time.

The pres­i­dent would re­main there un­til the gov­ern­ment re­gained con­trol. How­ev­er, it is said he aid­ed in calm­ing his fel­low cit­i­zens and get­ting rule of law and democ­ra­cy back on track up­on his re­turn.

Sir El­lis Clarke—

The death of Williams

The death of Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams on March 29, 1981, left a young in­de­pen­dent na­tion un­clear of its po­lit­i­cal fu­ture. Williams’ death came at a time when po­lit­i­cal par­ties in T&T did not have a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and vir­tu­al­ly no suc­ces­sion plan­ning. With the na­tion with­out a prime min­is­ter, Sir El­lis Clarke, serv­ing his sixth year as pres­i­dent, made the de­ci­sion to ap­point George Cham­bers as prime min­is­ter.

The de­ci­sion was met with some lev­el of scep­ti­cism as many sup­port­ers of the rul­ing PNM felt while Cham­bers was a mem­ber of the cab­i­net, there were oth­er se­nior mem­bers with­in the par­ty who could have been picked.

It was a con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sion at the time but Cham­bers would lead the PNM to vic­to­ry in the 1981 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

How­ev­er, in the 1986 elec­tions, he led the PNM to its worst ever elec­toral de­feat (win­ning on­ly three of the 36 seats in Par­lia­ment).