Kamla Persad-Bissessar has been elected the first female prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago after her five-party coalition swept to victory in snap elections in the former British colony.
A subdued Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning conceded defeat some five hours after the close of polls late on Monday, as TV counts showed almost the whole map of the larger island of Trinidad turn the coalition color of yellow, as well as both seats in Tobago.
The Elections and Boundaries Commission was yesterday due to declare official results for the 41 seat House of Representatives in the energy-rich nation off the coast of Venezuela.
Indian music and Caribbean beats rang out at a victory party for Persad-Bissessar in the nation famed for its carnival.
Her campaign tapped into voters’ worries about rising gang violence and corruption scandals.
The 58-year-old also promised to increase pensions and create a multimillion-dollar fund for sick children in a campaign focused on change.
“I’m deeply humbled by the trust you have given to me,” she said in a victory speech in which she emphasized unity for the nation’s diverse races.
Politics has long been divided along lines of Indian or African descent, the two majority ethnic groups. Manning’s People’s National Movement (PNM) draws most of its support from Afro-Trinidadians while the United National Congress (UNC) of Persad-Bissessar largely relies on Indo-Trinidadian backing.
The new coalition includes the multi-racial Congress of the People, and the smaller National Joint Action Committee, the Tobago Organization of the People and the Movement for Social Justice.
“Here, every creed and race finds an equal place and space,” Persad-Bissessar said on Monday.
Many hailed the win as an important step for women and also for the UNC, which only held power between 1995 and 2001.
“What I do know is that we’ve lost the elections ... I take full responsibility for the defeat,” Manning said on live television.
Diplomats overseeing the vote reported no major incidents.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate