Tobago is an island and ward within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast of the larger island of Trinidad and about 160 kilometres (99 mi) off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. It also lies to the southeast of Grenada.
The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) is a unicameral devolved legislative body responsible for the island of Tobago within the unitary state of Trinidad and Tobago. The THA was re-established in 1980 to rectify some of the disparities in the relationship between the two islands, though a prior body using the same name existed from 1768 to 1874. In addition to the normal local government functions the THA handles many of the responsibilities of the central government, but has limited ability to collect taxes and impose local law or zoning regulations. At the helm of the Assembly Legislature is the Presiding Officer with the fifteen elected assemblymen, and four appointed councillors. Three of the councillors are appointed on the advice on the Chief Secretary and one on the advice of the Minority Leader. The Chief Secretary is the leader of the majority party in the assembly and is at the helm of the Executive arm of the THA.
The Senate of Trinidad and Tobago is the appointed upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, along with the President and House of Representatives of Trinidad and Tobago. The Senate currently sits at the Red House. The Senate has 31 members all appointed by the President: 16 Government Senators appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister, 6 Opposition Senators appointed on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition and 9 Independent Senators appointed on the discretion of the President from outstanding persons who represent other sectors of civil society. The presiding officer, the President of the Senate, is elected from among the Senators who are not Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries. A senator must be at least 25 years old and a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago. The current President of the Senate is Senator Nigel de Freitas. As of 20 April 2021, there are only 13 female senators, or 41.9% and 6 Tobagonian senators or 19.4%. The Senate made history on 15 February 2022 by appointing Jowelle de Souza as an acting opposition senator, thus making her the Caribbean's first and only transgender parliamentarian.
Basdeo Panday is a Trinidadian and Tobagonian lawyer, politician, trade unionist, economist, actor, and former civil servant 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 five 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.
Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated 11 kilometres off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and 130 kilometres south of Grenada. It shares maritime boundaries with Barbados to the east, Grenada to the northwest, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the north and Venezuela to the south and west. Trinidad and Tobago is generally considered to be part of the West Indies. The island country's capital is Port of Spain, while its largest and most populous city is San Fernando.
Portuguese Trinidadians and Tobagonians are the descendants of emigrants from Portugal to Trinidad and Tobago. Between 1834 and 1975 about 2,000 Portuguese, especially from Madeira, immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago.
General elections were held in Trinidad and Tobago on Monday, 10 August 2020, to elect 41 members to the 12th Trinidad and Tobago Republican Parliament. It was the 14th election since gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1962 and the 22nd national election in Trinidad and Tobago ever. Tracy Davidson-Celestine, political leader of the Tobago Council of the People's National Movement (PNM) became the first woman to lead a Tobagonian political party with representation in the House of Representatives. Additionally, two of the three largest parties elected in 2015, the United National Congress (UNC) and the Congress of the People (COP), were led by women.
House of Assembly elections were held in Tobago on 25 January 2021 where 12 members were elected in the eleventh election since the Assembly was established in 1980. This election marked the first time in history that both parties elected, the People's National Movement (PNM) and Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) won an equal number seats of 6-6, despite the PNM winning the popular vote, resulting in a deadlock and a constitutional crisis with both political parties and Prime Minister Keith Rowley seeking senior counsel advice on the way forward. This election was the first time after 20 years in power that the PNM lost its absolute majority. This election also marked the first time a female political leader was elected to the Assembly and the first time a woman led a major political party or a political party with representation in the Assembly, following the 2020 Tobago Council of the People's National Movement leadership election where Health Secretary, councillor and former Trinidad and Tobago Ambassador to Costa Rica and former Deputy Chief Secretary of Tobago Tracy Davidson-Celestine made history by being elected as the PNM's first female political leader at the regional or national level and one of the first bilingual political leaders in the country's history. If Davidson-Celestine and the PNM were to be elected with a majority to their sixth consecutive term in office, she would have made history, becoming the first female Chief Secretary of Tobago. The election was held alongside local by-elections in Trinidad in which the PNM and UNC retained two districts and the PNM losing one to the UNC.
The Chief Secretary of Tobago is the leader of the Tobagonian Government. The Chief Secretary chairs the Tobagonian Cabinet and is primarily responsible for the formulation, development and presentation of Tobagonian Government policy. Additional functions of the Chief Secretary include promoting and representing Tobago in an official capacity, at home and abroad, and responsibility for constitutional affairs, as they relate to devolution and the Tobagonian Government.
Tracy Petulia Davidson-Celestine is a Tobagonian politician who is the former Secretary of Health, Wellness and Family Development, as well as a former Councillor in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) becoming one of the leading members addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Tobago. She is the first female political leader in the THA, a defeated Chief Secretary candidate, the first woman to lead a Tobagonian party with representation in the House of Representatives and Tobago House of Assembly and one of the first bilingual political leaders in Trinidad and Tobago, as a result she has been popularly referred to by the nickname Boss Lady.
The Tobago Council of the People's National Movement (PNM), also known as the Tobago Council of the PNM, PNM Tobago or PNM Tobago Council is the longest-serving and oldest active political party in Tobago. The party is the autonomous branch of the Trinidad and Tobago People's National Movement operating in Tobago. While its political leader acts in the local capacity, they also serve as a deputy leader on a national level. The party's executives organize for both local and national election campaigns. There have been three PNM Chief Secretaries and administrations.
The 2020 Tobago Council of the People's National Movement election were held on January 19, 2020. For the first time, a one member, one vote voting system was adopted for all 17 positions contested. The winner, Tracy Davidson-Celestine, the first female political leader for the party, will go on to contest the Chief Secretary position of the Tobago House of Assembly in the 2021 Tobago House of Assembly election.
The Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) is a political party in Trinidad and Tobago. Founded in 2016, it is currently the second-largest party in Tobagonian politics following the decline of the Tobago Organisation of the People. The party plans to contest the upcoming Trinidadian local election and every seat in the next general election, officially launching as a national party on 1 May 2022. It later provided a plan for Tobagonian independence.
The 2022 People's National Movement internal election, the last one for the PNM before the 2025 general election, took place over three days: November 26 and 27 and December 4, 2022. The current party leader and Prime Minister Keith Rowley had indicated he would most likely not seek to lead the party into the next general election. Rowley made these comments in his victory speech on the night of the 2020 Trinidad and Tobago general election, where the PNM secured a second mandate under his leadership but with the slimmest majority for a government in two decades. However, he announced that he would seek another term as the party's leader in October of 2022. In the 2020 general election campaign, he indicated that he would have stood down had the PNM lost. The election followed the 2022 Tobago Council of the People's National Movement leadership election. Keith Rowley won re-election by an overwhelming majority with a low voter turnout with 9,111 out of 105,894 eligible party members voting.
Snap House of Assembly elections were held in Tobago on 6 December 2021 to elect all 15 members of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA). The election was called following a deadlock created by the January 2021 elections which resulted in a tie between the People's National Movement (PNM) and the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP), with both parties winning six seats. As a result, the number of seats in the legislature was increased from 12 to 15 to avoid ties.
One Tobago Voice is a political party in Tobago, an island located in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The party was founded in 2016 by veteran politician Ashworth Jack, who serves as the party's leader and president.
Tobago Forwards is a political party in Tobago, an island located in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The party was founded by political activist Christlyn Moore and Pastor Terance Baynes who serves as the party's leader and president.
The 2023 Trinidadian local elections are scheduled to be held on Monday, August 14, 2023 across all 141 electoral districts in Trinidad's 14 municipal corporation electoral areas. The elections follow a 3-2 ruling on May 18, 2023 from the United Kingdom's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago's highest court of appeal, which stated that the government's one year extension of the mandate of councillors and alderman was unlawful. The election also comes two years after the PNM's landslide loss in the December 2021 Tobago House of Assembly election, where the party was wiped out of office in the Tobago House of Assembly after two decades in power. Polls point to widespread rejection among the population for both the governing People's National Movement and the opposition United National Congress with both major parties and their leaders, Prime Minister Keith Rowley and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar being "extremely unpopular with unprecedented low approval ratings.”
Faith Brebnor Yisrael is a Tobagonian public health official and politician who has served in the Tobago House of Assembly since 2017. Initially an appointed member of the body, she was elected in January 2021 as a member of the Progressive Democratic Patriots, though she left the party in December 2022 following disagreements with leader Watson Duke.
