↑ Original stance of the party, however after Capildeo adopted democratic socialism in 1963 it still stood as the stance of the conservative faction of the party.
The Democratic Labour Party (abbr.DLP) was the main oppositionparty in Trinidad and Tobago from 1957 till 1976. That party was the party which opposed the People's National Movement (PNM) at the time of Independence. After several splits brought about by leadership struggles, the party lost its hold on the Indo-Trinidadian community in the 1976 General Elections and was displaced in parliament by the United Labour Front under the leadership of Basdeo Panday, a former DLP senator. The party was the representative of the ethnic Indian community in the country; however Indian Muslims and Christians were said to be less loyal to the party than Indian Hindus.[5]
Shortly thereafter the party began to disintegrate. Bhadase Sagan Maraj, the first leader of the party in the Legislative Council, became ill, bedridden and overly reliant on pethidine.[6]Rudranath Capildeo was elected party leader in 1960; he was brought into the party to provide an "intellectual equal" to Eric Williams. When Capildeo left Trinidad to teach at the University of London in 1963, a faction of the party called a general meeting and elected Albert Gomes party leader. However, the rank and file of the party stood behind Capildeo, and the Gomes faction left the party.
1961 saw the introduction of the Representation of the People Act, which modernized the election process by instituting identification cards, voting machines, and altered the way in which constituencies were laid out. The DLP viewed this as an attempt to disenfranchise Indo-Trinidadian voters.[citation needed] Indo-Trinidadians were less educated and suspicious of authorities.[citation needed] The DLP claimed that Indo-Trinidadians would be less likely to register, and might be intimidated by "complicated" voting machines. They also accused the PNM of gerrymandering the constituencies to maximise the impact of PNM supporters and minimise the impact of DLP supporters.
Consequently, the 1961 General Election campaign was extremely tense and racially polarised. The DLP alleged that voting machines were rigged. These allegations found support when initial returns showed PNM candidate A.N.R. Robinson receiving more votes than there were registered electors in his constituency. The PNM secured a two-thirds majority (20 of 30 seats) in Parliament.The DLP won the remaining 10 seats. When the Federation was dissolved in 1961 (following the withdrawal of Jamaica), this majority allowed the PNM to write the Independence Constitution without input from the DLP. In response to allegations of voting irregularities the DLP boycotted the opening of parliament and operated largely through boycotts and walk-outs.
In 1963 Rudranath Capildeo accepted a permanent position at the University of London and attempted to run the DLP and serve as Leader of the Opposition while based in London. He was able to retain his seat in Parliament through special dispensation from the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Arnold Thomasos. In March of that year Capildeo gave the party a new creed, democratic socialism. This action, coupled with Capildeo's absentee rulership, led to a revolt in the party executive, and this resulted in the appointment of Stephen Carpoondeo Maharaj, a former Butler Party member, as Leader of the Opposition, while Capildeo retained the post of Party Leader. When the executive tried to replace Capildeo with Maharaj as Party leader, Capildeo dismissed the executive. In response to this on 13 January 1964 three MPs, Montgomery Forrester, Peter Farquahar and Tajmool Hosein resigned from the party and formed the Liberal Party.
In response to labour unrest in 1965, the PNM government introduced the Industrial Stabilisation Act (ISA), which banned strike action in the public service and restricted the use of strikes and lock-outs in private industry. In the spirit of democratic socialism, Stephen Carpoondeo Maharaj instructed his MPs to vote against the bill. However, two members of the House of Representatives (Ashford Sastri Sinanan and Lionel Frank Seukeran), and all four Senators voted in favour of the bill. This led to a split in the party, with three separate wings vying for power. The centrist wing was led by Vernon Jamadar, the leftist wing by Stephen Carpoondeo Maharaj, and the conservative wing by Lionel Frank Seukaran and Ashford Sastri Sinanan. Maharaj, as Leader of the Opposition, attempted to remove the DLP Senators and replace them with leftists C.L.R. James, George Weekes (both Afro-Trinidadians), Adrian Cola Rienzi (an Indo-Trinidadian and former ally of T.U.B. Butler in the Labour riots of 1937), and Jack Kelshall (a white Trinidadian socialist and former advisor to Cheddi Jagan).
As Leader of the Opposition, Maharaj had the ability to appoint and dismiss Opposition Senators. In June, in response to the failure of the DLP Senators to oppose the ISA, Maharaj wrote the Governor General Sir Solomon Hochoy and asked him to revoke the appointment of the Senators and replace them with James, Rienzi and Clive Phil. Instead, based on the advice of the conservative wing of the party (which had the support of four MPs), Hochoy revoked Maharaj's appointment and replaced him with Simbhoonath Capildeo (Rudranath Capildeo's older brother).
Throughout all this Rudranath Capildeo remained party leader. He had selected Maharaj to be Leader of the Opposition and had opposed the ISA. However, rather than take a side in the dispute he remained vague, until he returned from England in July. Upon arrival he denounced Simbhoonath Capildeo as the main troublemaker in the party, and accused him of hiring a hit man to kill him.[citation needed] He met with Maharaj, James, Kelshall and Rienzi and promised to mobilise the DLP to oppose the ISA. The following day he denounced James, Maharaj and Rienzi of plotting against the interest of the party. He dismissed his brother as Leader of the Opposition and replaced him with Jamadar. In response to these actions, the DLP split again. Stephen Maharaj formed the Workers and Farmers Party (together with Weekes, James and a young Basdeo Panday), Simbhoonath Capildeo resigned from the DLP and joined the Liberal Party and Lionel Seukaran became an Independent. This left the DLP and the Liberals each holding four seats, the WFP holding one, and Seukaran holding the other as an Independent. Seukeran formed the Seukeran Independent Party (SIP) as a means of organizing his supporters.
The 1966 General Elections allowed the DLP to return to its position as the sole opposition party. The DLP won 12 of 36 seats. The WFP, SIP and the Liberal Party failed to win any seats. Rudranath Capildeo's continued absences led to his seat being declared vacant in 1967. When the DLP chose to boycott the by-election in protest, Bhadase Sagan Maraj was able to return to Parliament by winning the seat as an Independent.
"No-vote campaign"
In 1969, Vernon Jamadar was able to capture the party leadership from Capildeo. Following the Black Power riots and army mutiny in 1970, the DLP allied itself with former PNM Deputy Leader, A.N.R. Robinson, and his new movement, the Action Committee of Democratic Citizens (ACDC). When Williams called elections 6 months early, Robinson declared that he would not contest the election and called upon supporters to boycott the election. Despite reservations, the DLP ended up supporting Robinson in his "no vote" campaign.
Hoping to capitalize on the DLP's absence Bhadase Sagan Maraj formed the Democratic Liberation Party. Among the candidates fielded were Stephen Carpoondeo Maharaj, Lionel Frank Seukeran and Satnarayan Maharaj. The DLP in retaliation sent out their supporters to vote for their rival the People's National Movement, rather than see Maraj's party win. Thus, the Democratic Liberation Party failed to make headway against the DLP's "No-Vote" campaign and won no seats. Shortly after in the year, Bhadase Sagan Maraj died.
Thanks to the boycott, the PNM won all seats in the 1971 General Election. Many in the party felt betrayed by Robinson's actions, but the boycott resulted in a switch from voting machines to paper ballots.
Demise of the party
Alloy Lequay ousted Jamadar as party leader in 1972. This led to Vernon Jamadar breaking off and forming the Social Democratic Labour Party of Trinidad and Tobago. The rump DLP then merged with the remnants of the Liberal Party and renamed itself the United Democratic Labour Party, now led by Simbhoonath Capildeo. Another faction led by Ashford Sinanan emerged and called itself the West Indian National Party (WINP). None of the successor parties won any seats in the 1976 General Elections. The new United Labour Front led by Basdeo Panday was able to totally displace the DLP from its core Indo-Trinidadian constituency. Jamadar and Lequay both contested the Siparia constituency (among eight candidates), but were soundly beaten by the ULF's Raffique Shah. That spelt the end of their political careers. Basdeo Panday later led the people who supported the party into the National Alliance for Reconstruction (which brought Indo-Trinidadians into power as part of a multi-racial coalition), then he finally led them into power as the dominant faction in the United National Congress government between 1995 and 2001, which won power again in 2010-2015 under Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
None of the principles of the DLP played a significant role in party politics after the demise of the party. Simboonath Capildeo and Vernon Jamadar returned to their respective legal practices. Satnarayan Maharaj took over control of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha after the death of his father-in-law, Bhadase Sagan Maraj in 1971. Alloy Lequay went on to play a distinguished role as President and CEO of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board, from which he retired in 2005.
Political impact
The DLP originated from the merger of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the Trinidad Labour Party (TLP) and the Party of Political Progress Groups (POPPG). The PDP was a conservative party of the Indo-Trinidadian middle and upper-middle class with a primarily BrahminHindu leadership. The POPPG was a party of the white and near-white middle and upper-middle class, a small but economically powerful group. The Trinidad Labour Party was a working-class party, but had seen its support decline from 12% of the electorate in 1946 to 5% in 1956.[citation needed] Both the PDP and the POPPG had achieved electoral support by appealing to the Indo-Trinidadian and Afro-Trinidadian working classes, but the rise of the PNM split the Afro-Trinidadians away from the POPPG. By appealing to Sanatanist Hindus on religious and racial grounds, the DLP was able to entrench itself among Hindu Trinidadians, but the race-based appeal of the 1961 election campaign alienated the non-Indian middle class elements. Rudranath Capildeo's adoption of Democratic Socialism was an attempt to create a stronger link with the party's base, but it widened the rift with the middle class. By the early 1970s the party leadership was almost entirely Brahmin Hindu or Presbyterian Indian.
The DLP never held political power, limiting its impact on the overall direction of Trinidad and Tobago. In addition, unlike the PNM, which had a strong central leadership (in the person of Eric Williams), the DLP lacked a united leadership. The loss of the Gomes faction in 1960 and Farquahar, Forrester and Hosein in 1964 resulted in the loss of a section of the population which would remain unrepresented politically until the formation of the Organisation for National Reconstruction in 1981. Eric Williams had managed to attract much of the Muslim and Presbyterian portions of the Indo-Trinidadian population to the PNM. Even though these groups later drifted away from the PNM, Muslims remained an important constituency within the PNM until 1986.
Faced with the opportunity to expand the party through alliance with labour leaders, Rudranath Capildeo chose to steer the party away from this block. Rather than share power within the party with Afro-Trinidadians, Capildeo chose to remain permanently in Opposition. As the PNM moved away from racially threatening rhetoric, the DLP leadership was able to build a relationship with them. Many within the party accused the leadership of selling out the rank and file in exchange for political favours, but the purge of 1965 ensured that no-one remained in the party with enough personal support to be able to challenge the leadership.
The labour unrest of the 1960s and the Black Power movement of the early 1970s created other blocks of opposition to the PNM, but the DLP leadership was not able to attract these groups to their orbit. Instead, the opposition remained fragmented and disunited until the rise of the National Alliance for Reconstruction in 1986.
The United National Congress is one of two major political parties in Trinidad and Tobago and the current parliamentary opposition. The UNC is a centre-left party. It was founded in 1989 by Basdeo Panday, a Trinidadian lawyer, economist, trade unionist, and actor after a split in the ruling National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR). After spending six years in opposition, the UNC won control of the government in 1995, initially in coalition with the NAR and later on its own. In the 2000 general election, the UNC won an absolute majority in the Parliament. In 2001, a split in the party caused the UNC to lose its parliamentary majority and control of the government. From 2001 to 2010, the UNC was once again Parliamentary Opposition party. In May 2010, the UNC returned to government as the majority party in the People's Partnership. The UNC's Political Leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, was sworn in as the first female Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Kamla Persad-Bissessar was Prime Minister from 2010 until 2015.
The People's National Movement (PNM) is the longest-serving and oldest active political party in Trinidad and Tobago. The party has dominated national and local politics for much of Trinidad and Tobago's history, contesting all elections since 1956 serving as the nation's governing party or on four occasions, the main opposition. It is one out of the country's two main political parties. There have been four PNM Prime Ministers and multiple ministries. The party espouses the principles of liberalism and generally sits at the centre to centre-left of the political spectrum.
Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians or Indian-Trinidadians and Tobagonians are people of Indian origin who are nationals of Trinidad and Tobago, whose ancestors came from India and the wider subcontinent beginning in 1845 during the period of colonization.
National Team Unity (NTU) was a political party in Trinidad and Tobago led by Human Rights lawyer and former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj.
Rudranath Capildeo was a Trinidadian and Tobagonian politician, mathematician and barrister. He was a member of the prominent Hindu Indo-Trinidadian Capildeo family. Capildeo was the leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) from 1960 to 1969 and the first Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of the independent Trinidad and Tobago from 1962 to 1967. He was also a faculty member at the University of London, eventually holding the position of Reader of Mathematics. He was awarded the Trinity Cross, the nation's highest award, in 1969.
Bhadase Sagan Maraj was a Trinidadian and Tobagonian politician, Hindu leader, civil rights activist, trade unionist, landowner, businessman, philanthropist, wrestler, and writer. He founded the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha in 1952, which grew to be the largest and most influential Hindu organization in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean. He also founded the Caroni East Indian Association, the People's Democratic Party, the Democratic Labour Party, the Democratic Liberation Party, the Federation of Unions of Sugar Workers and Cane Farmers, and The Bomb newspaper.
The West Indies Democratic Labour Party (DLP) or Democrats was one of two Federal parties in the short-lived West Indies Federation, the other being the West Indies Federal Labour Party (WIFLP). The party was organised by Sir Alexander Bustamante to counter the WIFLP led by his cousin Norman Manley. In the 1958 West Indies federal elections, the party lost, winning 19 of the 45 seats in the Federal Parliament of the West Indies Federation.
Albert Maria Gomes was a Trinidadian unionist, politician, and writer of Portuguese descent, was the first Chief Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He was the founder of the Political Progress Groups and later led the Party of Political Progress Groups. He was active in the formation of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in Trinidad and Tobago and played a role in forcing Sir Alexander Bustamante out of the Federal Democratic Labour Party. Gomes briefly led DLP in 1963 when factions loyal to briefly ousted Rudranath Capildeo after Capildeo left Trinidad and Tobago to take up a position at the University of London. However, the rank and file of the party stood behind Capildeo, and Gomes left the party.
Simbhoonath Capildeo was a prominent lawyer and politician in Trinidad and Tobago. He was the elder brother of Rudranath Capildeo and uncle of Nobel laureate Sir Vidia "V. S." Naipaul and Shiva Naipaul. He was father to two sons, Surendranath and Devendranath Capildeo and a daughter, Sita Capildeo. Capildeo was one of the founding members of the Democratic Labour Party and a member of parliament from 1956 to 1966, becoming known as "the Lion of the Legislative Council". He served as the acting Leader of the Opposition for Bhadase Sagan Maraj and Rudranath Capildeo. Capildeo was also an important leader of the Hindu community in Trinidad and played in role in the foundation of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha. In 1989 he was awarded the Chaconia Gold Medal by the Trinidad and Tobago government, honoring his service to the country.
All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Union, founded by Adrian Cola Rienzi was the major sugar workers' trade union and the predominant Indo-Trinidadian voice in organised labour in Trinidad and Tobago between the 1930s and 1970s. Leadership of the trade union passed from Rienzi to the Vice President, McDonald Moses, then Bhadase Sagan Maraj, and later to Krishna Gowandan.
The People's Democratic Party was a political party in Trinidad and Tobago formed in 1953. Under the leadership of Bhadase Sagan Maraj it contested the 1956 General Elections, capturing 5 of 24 elected seats in the Legislative Council and 20.3% of the vote. In 1957 it joined the Federal Democratic Labour Party and later co-founded the Trinidad and Tobago Democratic Labour Party, together with the Trinidad Labour Party and the Party of Political Progress Groups.
Basdeo Panday was a Trinidadian and Tobagonian statesman, lawyer, politician, trade unionist, economist, and actor who served as the fifth Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1995 to 2001. He was the first person of Indian descent along with being the first Hindu to hold the office of Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He was first elected to Parliament in 1976 as the Member for Couva North, Panday served as Leader of the Opposition four times between 1976 and 2010 and was a founding member of the United Labour Front (ULF), the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), and the United National Congress (UNC). He served as leader of the ULF and UNC, and was President General of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers' Trade Union from 1973 to 1995.
Maraj, Maharaj, Maharajh, Maragh, or Maharagh is a Hindu Indian surname derived from the Sanskrit word Maharaja meaning "great leader", "great ruler", or "great king". Originally used as an honorific suffix to a Hindu priest's name, it became the surname of many Hindu priests who immigrated to different European colonies during the Indian indenture system and their descendants because when stating their names to the respective local colonial authorities they would state their whole name and many would include the honorific suffix of Maharaj, which the authorities erroneously documented as their surname. Notable individuals bearing the surname include:
The All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers' Trade Union (ATSGWTU) is a trade union in Trinidad and Tobago. It was founded in 1937 to represent workers in the sugar industry, but expanded its scope in 1978 to include workers in a variety of sectors.
The Capildeo family is an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian family of Hindu pundits, politicians, and writers. The most notable members are 2001 Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul and mathematician and politician Rudranath Capildeo. The ancestral home of the Capildeo family is known as Anand Bhavan and is in Chaguanas, Caroni County, Trinidad and Tobago. No-one today knows how the name Kapil transformed into Capildeo. It is possible that Kapil added dev, meaning God, from his village's name of Mahadeva Dubey to his name. Transliteration from Hindi to English was not well developed in the 19th century and words were spelt differently then from the way they are now. Thus, Kapil was changed to Capil and dev to deo, giving Kapil's descendants the surname of Capildeo.
Federal elections were held in the West Indies Federation for the first and only time on 25 March 1958. The result was a victory for the West Indies Federal Labour Party, which won 25 of the 45 seats in the House of Representatives.
The 2020United National Congress leadership election was held on Sunday, 6 December 2020, after Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the current leader of the UNC, faced losses commencing in January 2013 with the wipeout of her People's Partnership-led administration from the Tobago House of Assembly at the 2013 election, loss in the 2015 Trinidad and Tobago general election and loss in the 2020 Trinidad and Tobago general election. The candidates for political leader were incumbent Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Team Star against former member of parliament for St. Augustine and former Minister of Trade, Industry and Investment in the People's Partnership's government, Vasant Bharath, on Team Lotus. Former senator and Minister of Transport in the People's Partnership's government, Devant Maharaj, was an early candidate for political leader, but was never formally nominated as he dropped out on nomination day on the 15th of November 2020, citing irregularities in the voting process. He endorsed Vasant Bharath and Team Lotus. Kamla Persad-Bissessar won with of 87.15% of the votes, while Vasant Bharath got 12.85% of the votes.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Trinidad and Tobagoportal 
