Gail Alexan­der

There was no re­sponse yes­ter­day from Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials on whether Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo may be nom­i­nat­ed for the post of Pres­i­dent by Jan­u­ary 13, when nom­i­na­tions are ex­pect­ed to be sub­mit­ted, or whether an­oth­er lu­mi­nary will be se­lect­ed.

Kan­ga­loo, due to her po­si­tion as Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, usu­al­ly acts as Pres­i­dent in Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes’ ab­sence, and did so re­cent­ly al­so.

Kan­ga­loo was tipped af­ter the De­cem­ber 23 no­tice that the Elec­toral Col­lege will meet on Jan­u­ary 20, 2023, to elect a Pres­i­dent.

The no­tice was is­sued by chair­man of the Elec­toral Col­lege, House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George.

The five-year term of Weekes start­ed on March 19, 2018. The is­su­ing of the re­cent no­tice sig­nals Weekes will not be re­turn­ing, and a new Pres­i­dent will be elect­ed.

Weekes turned 64 on De­cem­ber 23 - the same day the no­tice was is­sued.

Weekes is T&T’s sixth Pres­i­dent and its first fe­male Pres­i­dent. She is al­so the sec­ond fe­male head of state af­ter T&T’s pre-In­de­pen­dence, for­mer British monarch, the late Queen Eliz­a­beth II, be­ing the oth­er per­so to hold that ti­tle.

Weekes had been the on­ly nom­i­nat­ed can­di­date for Pres­i­dent in 2018. Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion had held dis­cus­sions on the can­di­da­cy and she was elect­ed with­out the need for a vote.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­cent no­tice, nom­i­na­tion for a can­di­date must be signed by the can­di­date and 12-plus House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives mem­bers. The form must be sub­mit­ted to the Speak­er at least sev­en days be­fore the Jan­u­ary 20 elec­tion.

Once nom­i­na­tion(s) are in, on Jan­u­ary 20, mem­bers of the Sen­ate (Up­per House) and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (Low­er House) will meet at the Red House for the elec­tion, where the nom­i­na­tions will be vot­ed up­on. The Gov­ern­ment’s com­bined num­bers from both its Up­per and Low­er House teams out­num­ber the Op­po­si­tion’s. There are al­so nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

If Kan­ga­loo is nom­i­nat­ed by Gov­ern­ment for the post, a new Sen­ate Pres­i­dent will have to be ap­point­ed.

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment sources said they ex­pect some­one with a le­gal back­ground to be ap­point­ed as Pres­i­dent, but al­so said the is­sue was “a mat­ter for the Prime Min­is­ter and this is one we all have to wait and see...”

On Mon­day, top UNC of­fi­cials said po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had not cau­cused to dis­cuss the mat­ter as yet.

UNC of­fi­cials speak­ing at to­mor­row’s end of year me­dia brief­ing are ex­pect­ed to com­ment on the is­sue of a pos­si­ble UNC can­di­date and Weekes’ tenure and de­par­ture.

Cer­tain names be­ing sug­gest­ed by some in with­in UNC par­ty ranks in­clude for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jawala Ram­baran.

On whether UNC would field a can­di­date at all, a UNC of­fi­cial, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said “We will keep nom­i­na­tions close. But do you think any­one we sug­gest will be­come Pres­i­dent? The PNM con­trols the Elec­toral Col­lege and they have al­ready shown they will rub their ‘PN­M­ness’ in the faces of the pop­u­la­tion from Email­gate to Paria­gate. The po­lit­i­cal con­trol of in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions is a goal of the PNM.

Af­ter the elec­tion of a suc­ces­sor, the nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by Weekes are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue in of­fice un­til oth­er­wise in­struct­ed by the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, sources said.