Rise To Power
When Eric Williams returned to Trinidad in 1948 he set about developing a political base. Between 1948 and 1955 he delivered a series of political lectures, under the auspices of the Political Education Movement (PEM) a branch of the Teachers Education and Cultural Association. On January 15, 1956 Williams launched the PNM. In the 1956 General Elections the PNM captured 13 of the 24 elected seats in the Legislative Council with 38.7% of the votes cast. In order to secure an outright majority in the Legislative Council Williams managed to convince the Secretary of State for the Colonies to allow him to name the five appointed members of the council (despite the opposition of the Governor Sir Edward Betham Beetham). This gave him a clear majority in the Legislative Council. Williams was thus elected Chief Minister and was also able to get all seven of his ministers elected.
In the 1958 Federal Elections (which the PNM contested as part of the West Indies Federal Labour Party), it won four of the 10 Trinidad and Tobago seats with 47.4% of the vote. The Opposition Democratic Labour Party won the other six seats.
Read more about this topic: People's National Movement
Famous quotes containing the words rise to, rise and/or power:
“How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?”
—Edwin Markham (1852–1940)
“There is one thing that the American people always rise to and extend their hand to and that is the truth of justice, and of liberty, and of peace. We have accepted that truth and we are going to led by it ... and through us the world, out into pastures of quietness and peace such as the world never dreamed of before.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“As usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to. And this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)