President Robinson sparked controversy in his term in office when he refused to appoint certain senators recommended by Prime Minister Basdeo Panday following the elections in 2000 and in 2001 when he appointed the Leader of the Opposition Patrick Manning to the position of prime minister after a tied election.

In 1951 he left for the United Kingdom, where he was called to the bar at Inner Temple and obtained a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from St. John's College, Oxford.

[1] Robinson was a founding member of the People's National Movement and served in the parliament of the West Indies Federation between 1958 and 1960.

[4] Following the Black Power Revolution in 1970, Robinson resigned from the People's National Movement and formed the Action Committee of Dedicated Citizens, which joined forced with the Democratic Labour Party to contest the 1971 General Elections; Robinson and the DLP ended up boycotting the elections in protest over the use of voting machines.

It entered into an alliance with the Organisation for National Reconstruction, under the leadership of Karl Hudson-Phillips, to successfully fight the 1983 Trinidad and Tobago local elections.

Shortly after assuming the position, he dismissed Basdeo Panday, Kelvin Ramnath, Trevor Sudama and John Humphrey from the Cabinet.

During the 1990 coup d'état attempt by the Jamaat al Muslimeen, Robinson and much of his cabinet were held hostage for six days by gunmen under the leadership of Yasin Abu Bakr.

[6] In reaction, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said that he was "one of our nation's outstanding sons...but the legacy he leaves behind shall surely live on to inspire today's and tomorrow's generations."