People's Partnership | |
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Abbreviation | PP |
Leader | Kamla Persad-Bissessar |
Founder | Kamla Persad-Bissesar |
Founded | April 21, 2010 |
Dissolved | December 8, 2015 [1] [2] |
Merged into | UNC, COP, TOP, MSJ and NJAC |
Headquarters | Couva, Couva–Tabaquite–Talparo, Trinidad and Tobago |
Newspaper | The Voice |
Ideology | Social democracy Third Way |
Political position | Centre-left |
Colors | Yellow |
Website | |
http://peoplespartnership.unitednationalcongress.org | |
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The People's Partnership (PP) was a political coalition in Trinidad and Tobago among five political parties: the United National Congress (UNC), the Congress of the People (COP), the Tobago Organization of the People (TOP), Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) and National Joint Action Committee (NJAC). The political leader was Kamla Persad-Bissessar. [3] The coalition was formed in advance of the 2010 general election attempting to form a multi-ethnic opposition bloc against the People's National Movement (PNM) government led by Patrick Manning. [3] The coalition won the 2010 General Elections defeating the People's National Movement on May 24, 2010. On September 7, 2015, the coalition was defeated in the 2015 General Elections to the People's National Movement led by Keith Rowley. The coalition saw the departure of the Movement for Social Justice in 2012 [4] [5] [6] [7] and eventually disbanded on December 8, 2015 . [1] [2]
On January 24, 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar was elected political leader of the UNC, emerging victorious over the party's founder, Basdeo Panday. She was formally appointed opposition leader on February 25, 2010.
On April 21, 2010 at Charlie King Junction, Fyzabad, a "Unity Accord" also known as the "Fyzabad Declaration" was signed by the UNC political leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, COP political leader Winston Dookeran, NJAC chief servant Makandal Daaga, TOP political leader Ashworth Jack, and president of the Movement for Social Justice, Errol McLeod. [8]
On May 24, 2010, the People's Partnership led by Kamla Persad-Bissessar defeated the People's National Movement by securing 29 out of 41 seats in the House of Representatives. [9] Persad-Bissessar was sworn in as the first female prime minister by President George Maxwell Richards, where Anand Ramlogan was sworn in as Attorney General on May 26, 2010. Shortly thereafter, the People's Partnership won the 2010 local elections on July 26, 2010, securing a majority in the local corporations.
On June 17, 2012, the Movement for Social Justice severed ties with the coalition citing poor governance. [4] [5] [6] [7]
On January 21, 2013, the Tobago Organization of the People, lost all 12 electoral seats in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) elections to the People's National Movement.
On April 21, 2013, one of the coalition's financiers, Minister of National Security, and Chairman of the United National Congress, Jack Warner resigned two days after an investigation accused him and his one-time ally Chuck Blazer of "fraudulent" management at Concacaf, [10] a regional football confederation. His resignation triggered a by-election in the Chaguanas-West constituency which he won three months later on July 29, 2013, under his newly formed Independent Liberal Party.
On July 30, 2013, Member of Parliament for St. Joseph, Herbert Volney resigned as Minister of Justice and the UNC party due to the "Section 34" fallout. His resignation also triggered a by-election in the St. Joseph constituency which was lost to the People's National Movement on November 4, 2013.
The People's Partnership also lost the Local Government Elections on October 25, 2013 to the People's National Movement. This meant that the coalition lost a total of four successive elections in one year.
Allegations were also raised on May 20, 2013 known as the "Emailgate" [11] scandal regarding a criminal conspiracy in September 2012 against Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, as well as a plot to harm and discredit a newspaper reporter Denyse Renne, and the payment of monies in exchange for freedom by an unnamed person.
Then Opposition leader, Dr Rowley read a thread of 31 email messages in the Parliament purporting to be a conversation between four people, whose email accounts were similar to those of the then Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, National Security advisor Gary Griffith, and Works and Infrastructure Minister Suruj Rambachan. Six years later on July 17, 2019, the police investigation into the case has been officially closed with no charges being laid. [12]
In the 2015 general election, the People's Partnership Government was defeated by the People's National Movement only winning 18 of the 41 seats; 17 were won by the United National Congress, and 1 by the severely weakened Congress of the People. The remaining coalition partners, the Tobago Organization of the People and the National Joint Action Committee failed to win a seat and have quietly departed from the coalition party. Persad-Bissessar was appointed Leader of the Opposition by President Anthony Carmona on September 21, 2015, to form the UNC led Opposition party in the 11th Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago.
The politics of Trinidad and Tobago function within the framework of a unitary state regulated by a parliamentary democracy modelled on that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, from which the country gained its independence in 1962. Under the 1976 republican Constitution, the monarch was replaced as head of state by a President chosen by an electoral college composed of the members of the bicameral Parliament, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Patrick Augustus Mervyn Manning was a Trinidadian politician who was the fourth prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago; his terms ran from 17 December 1991 to 9 November 1995 and from 24 December 2001 to 26 May 2010. He was also the political leader of the People's National Movement (PNM) from 1987 to 2010. A geologist by training, Manning served as Member of Parliament for the San Fernando East constituency from 1971 until 2015 when he was replaced by Randall Mitchell and was the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives. He was the Leader of the Opposition from 1986 to 1990 and again from 1995 to 2001.
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.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar ; born Kamla Susheila Persad, 22 April 1952), often referred to by her initials KPB, is a Trinidadian and Tobagonian lawyer, politician and educator who is the Leader of the Opposition of Trinidad and Tobago, political leader of the United National Congress (UNC) political party, and was the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 26 May 2010 until 9 September 2015. She was the country's first female prime minister, attorney general, and Leader of the Opposition, the first woman to chair the Commonwealth of Nations and the first woman of Indian origin to be a prime minister of a country outside of India and the wider subcontinent.
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.
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