In her New Year’s Day 2026 mes­sage, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo said the start of a new year of­fered an op­por­tu­ni­ty to leave be­hind what had weighed the na­tion down while learn­ing from the ad­ver­si­ties of the past.

She de­scribed 2025 as a year marked by chal­lenges that test­ed re­silience and cre­ativ­i­ty but said it was not an “an­nus hor­ri­bilis”.

She point­ed to achieve­ments in sport, in­clud­ing per­for­mances by Keshorn Wal­cott, Jereem Richards and the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, as well as an­oth­er smooth and peace­ful tran­si­tion of pow­er, which she said demon­strat­ed the strength of the coun­try’s democ­ra­cy.

The Pres­i­dent en­cour­aged greater pa­tri­o­tism, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and re­spect in pub­lic life and urged cit­i­zens to re­flect on how they could con­tribute to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

She al­so not­ed that 2026 marked the 50th an­niver­sary of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­pub­li­can sta­tus, call­ing on cit­i­zens to recom­mit to shap­ing the na­tion’s fu­ture with uni­ty and con­fi­dence.