GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There will be a State of Emer­gency (SoE) in­to 2026!

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment will head to Par­lia­ment on Fri­day to ex­tend the SoE for three more months un­til ear­ly 2026, and it does not re­quire Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) votes to pass the ex­ten­sion.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials clar­i­fied this yes­ter­day in re­sponse to an ear­li­er re­port that it would seek a six-month ex­ten­sion. The sec­ond ex­ten­sion of the SoE will take T&T in­to ear­ly 2026 - like­ly Jan­u­ary - but not as far as May, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials re­vealed.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed the ex­ten­sion dur­ing an ap­pear­ance on Crime Watch on Mon­day.

It will be the sec­ond SoE run­ning in­to the lead-up of a Car­ni­val sea­son. Car­ni­val 2026 is Feb­ru­ary 16 and 17.

This year’s Car­ni­val in March al­so took place un­der an SoE.

The first SoE was in­sti­tut­ed on Ju­ly 18. Fol­low­ing de­bate in Par­lia­ment on Ju­ly 28, it was ex­tend­ed for three months. That pe­ri­od ex­pires to­day.

The mea­sure was an­nounced fol­low­ing in­creased mur­ders and what au­thor­i­ties said were planned at­tacks by a crim­i­nal net­work in­volv­ing peo­ple who had been in prison. The tar­gets were re­vealed to be peo­ple in the ju­di­cia­ry, Gov­ern­ment, law en­force­ment agen­cies, of­fi­cers in the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and prison of­fi­cials.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro had rec­om­mend­ed the SoE, based on in­tel­li­gence con­cern­ing the ex­is­tence of a so­phis­ti­cat­ed crim­i­nal net­work op­er­at­ing from with­in the prison sys­tem.

Sub­se­quent­ly, a num­ber of in­mates were re­moved from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca to a Ch­aguara­mas lo­ca­tion. Oth­er peo­ple un­der de­ten­tion or­ders have al­so been placed there.

Last week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, said she had met with se­cu­ri­ty heads to dis­cuss whether there should be an SoE ex­ten­sion.

Yes­ter­day, she re­vealed that CoP Gue­var­ro rec­om­mend­ed the SoE’s ex­ten­sion.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie is ex­pect­ed to present a mo­tion to Par­lia­ment on Fri­day for ap­proval of the ex­ten­sion. Rea­sons will be giv­en.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials cit­ed cer­tain crime is­sues con­tin­u­ing, plus height­ened US-Venezuela ten­sions and in­creased ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and T&T. They not­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fall­out on T&T from ei­ther sit­u­a­tion, es­pe­cial­ly if US-Venezuela hos­til­i­ties erupt in any con­fronta­tion.

“...That means war,” they clar­i­fied..

The first ex­ten­sion did not re­quire Op­po­si­tion votes for pas­sage and was passed with a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment’s votes. The Op­po­si­tion had ab­stained from vot­ing.

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials clar­i­fied that un­der the law, a sec­ond ex­ten­sion for three months can al­so be  done mi­nus Op­po­si­tion sup­port in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, once the ag­gre­gate be­tween the first SoE of three months and the sec­ond does not ex­ceed six month .

But they said a fur­ther ex­ten­sion be­yond the ag­gre­gate of six months will re­quire Op­po­si­tion sup­port of three fifths of mem­bers of both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (HOR) and the Sen­ate - and in the Sen­ate par­tic­u­lar­ly since the Gov­ern­ment has the req­ui­site three fifth ma­jor­i­ty in the HOR.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion of­fi­cials said, ”The Gov­ern­ment has to come clean and come good on Fri­day to jus­ti­fy the ex­ten­sion.”

A fur­ther three-month ex­ten­sion will make it al­most a year that T&T has been un­der SoEs.

The past ad­min­is­tra­tion an­nounced an SoE on De­cem­ber 30, 2024, fol­low­ing height­ened crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties which threat­ened pub­lic safe­ty. No cur­few was im­ple­ment­ed.

On Jan­u­ary 13, 2025, Par­lia­ment ex­tend­ed the SoE to April 13.

Three months af­ter the UNC took of­fice in April, an SoE was an­nounced in Ju­ly.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said they did not be­lieve an ex­tend­ed SoE would af­fect T&T’s in­vest­ment pro­file. They not­ed Car­ni­val 2025 took place suc­cess­ful­ly. The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions is al­so due ahead. The THA's term ends in De­cem­ber. Polls must be held by March 2026 for the lat­est.

Ed­i­tor's note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this sto­ry re­port­ed that Gov­ern­ment would be seek­ing a six-month ex­ten­sion to the SoE. It has since been clar­i­fied that the ini­tial ex­ten­sion will be for three months on­ly.