296 days and counting

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is de­fend­ing her Gov­ern­ment’s move to seek a three-month ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), in­sist­ing the mea­sure is tem­po­rary but nec­es­sary to pro­tect cit­i­zens from vi­o­lent crime af­ter what she de­scribed as decades of blood­shed and in­se­cu­ri­ty.

Speak­ing ahead of to­day’s par­lia­men­tary de­bate, where Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing what is es­sen­tial­ly the sec­ond ex­ten­sion to its sec­ond SoE since com­ing in­to of­fice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­gued that the coun­try could not af­ford a re­turn to the lev­els of vi­o­lence ex­pe­ri­enced over the past quar­ter-cen­tu­ry.

“For about 25 years, the coun­try has been tor­ment­ed by vi­o­lence, over ten thou­sand mur­ders, over twen­ty thou­sand re­port­ed rapes and sex­u­al as­saults, tens of thou­sands of rob­beries, beat­ings and oth­er vi­o­lent acts,” she said.

“Lit­tle chil­dren and women beat­en, raped and bru­tal­ly mur­dered, men gunned down for not join­ing a gang or be­cause they re­sist­ed ex­tor­tion. The pro­tec­tion of law-abid­ing, God-fear­ing cit­i­zens of this coun­try from vi­o­lent threats su­per­sedes every­thing. These mea­sures are tem­po­rary but nec­es­sary be­cause we can’t have an­oth­er vi­o­lent 25 years.”

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion has utilised con­sti­tu­tion­al emer­gency pow­ers across two dis­tinct pe­ri­ods since tak­ing of­fice in May 2025. The first na­tion­wide SoE was de­clared on Ju­ly 18, 2025, and re­mained in ef­fect for ex­act­ly 197 days un­til it of­fi­cial­ly ex­pired on Jan­u­ary 31, 2026. Fol­low­ing a brief pe­ri­od of nor­mal polic­ing, the Gov­ern­ment in­sti­tut­ed a sec­ond emer­gency frame­work that com­menced at mid­night on March 3, 2026. Fol­low­ing a par­lia­men­tary ex­ten­sion vote on March 13, 2026, this sec­ond mea­sure is cur­rent­ly legal­ly bound to ex­pire at mid­night on June 17, 2026. How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment is sched­uled to ta­ble an ex­ten­sion res­o­lu­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­day aim­ing to push the le­gal ex­pi­ra­tion date in­to mid-Sep­tem­ber 2026.

Count­ing to­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go will have spent a com­bined to­tal of 296 days un­der a State of Emer­gency since the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice.

The Prime Min­is­ter dis­missed con­cerns over the du­ra­tion of the emer­gency pow­ers, say­ing the pro­posed ex­ten­sion must be viewed in the con­text of the coun­try’s long-stand­ing crime cri­sis.

“A few months to ini­ti­ate ac­tions to deal with threats to the state and cit­i­zens’ se­cu­ri­ty is def­i­nite­ly tem­po­rary com­pared to 25 years of vi­o­lence, rapes, rob­beries and mur­der,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia asked the Prime Min­is­ter if the Gov­ern­ment would con­sid­er an­oth­er ex­ten­sion on top of the one be­ing sought to­day.

“Too ear­ly to spec­u­late on that. Com­mu­ni­ties all across the coun­try want peace and se­cu­ri­ty. The kids that are walk­ing for peace could not have done that in years gone by. They are fed up of see­ing their loved ones killed by en­gag­ing in a war that makes no sense led by gang lead­ers and mem­bers who op­press them and their fam­i­lies.”

While to­day’s three-month ex­ten­sion re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty in the Low­er House, an­oth­er three months will need sup­port from the Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent bench­es.

The Prime Min­is­ter added that the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue tak­ing ac­tion against crim­i­nal groups.

“The Gov­ern­ment and se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices will do what­ev­er it takes to give these com­mu­ni­ties and kids a chance for a bet­ter life de­spite the op­po­si­tion from some self­ish and self-serv­ing sec­tions of so­ci­ety,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The Prime Min­is­ter ar­gued that crime and so­cial prob­lems must al­so be ad­dressed be­yond polic­ing, point­ing to what she de­scribed as wider so­ci­etal chal­lenges.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens are good, law-abid­ing peo­ple. How­ev­er, there is too much pornog­ra­phy, al­co­hol and drug ad­dic­tion in the coun­try, com­bined with a lack of parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, along with men­tal ill­ness­es such as de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety and oth­ers,” she said.

“The so­ci­ety is hy­per-sex­u­alised, hy­per-ag­gres­sive and de­ci­sions are be­ing tak­en on emo­tions and not with com­mon sense or prop­er rea­son­ing. Some per­sons lack self-con­trol and their need for in­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion is dri­ving many so­cial and crim­i­nal prob­lems. Chil­dren be­come an easy tar­get for these peo­ple.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment was pur­su­ing a range of so­cial in­ter­ven­tions along­side its crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, in­clud­ing plac­ing po­lice of­fi­cers in schools, de­vel­op­ing parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion, re­view­ing the le­gal ages for gam­bling, al­co­hol and mar­i­jua­na use, cre­at­ing jobs and re­mov­ing gangs from com­mu­ni­ties.

“The Gov­ern­ment has been im­ple­ment­ing our an­ti-crime and so­cial plans holis­ti­cal­ly across min­istries from day one. Some choose to ig­nore that, and some ac­knowl­edge it,” she said.

She main­tained that erad­i­cat­ing gangs and vi­o­lent of­fend­ers from com­mu­ni­ties re­mained a key ob­jec­tive of the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“The Gov­ern­ment has to con­tin­ue to work to re­move vi­o­lent crim­i­nals and gangs from com­mu­ni­ties to give breath­ing space to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens liv­ing there. All com­mu­ni­ties want peace and the Gov­ern­ment will do every­thing pos­si­ble to as­sist them to achieve that peace.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so claimed that while cit­i­zens want im­prove­ments in pub­lic safe­ty, some are un­will­ing to ac­cept the mea­sures re­quired to achieve them.

“Every­one wants im­prove­ment and change to the crime sit­u­a­tion, but most peo­ple are not will­ing to make small ad­just­ments to get the im­prove­ments in the coun­try. The vast ma­jor­i­ty of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es are sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions to deal with threats to the state and cit­i­zens.”

De­cem­ber 30, 2024 (de­clared un­der Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion) end­ed on April 13, 2025 - 105 days

Ju­ly 18, 2026 (de­clared un­der Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion) end­ed on Jan­u­ary 31, 2026 - 197 days

March 3, 2026 (de­clared un­der PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion) to to­day June 10, 2026 - 99 days