GAIL ALEXAN­DER

It’s of­fi­cial—for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo has been elect­ed T&T’s sev­enth Pres­i­dent with a to­tal of 48 votes from par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

Op­po­si­tion nom­i­nee Is­rael Ra­jah-Khan, SC, was de­feat­ed af­ter gar­ner­ing a to­tal of 22 votes in yes­ter­day’s elec­tion process.

And there were al­so three spoiled-re­ject­ed bal­lots in yes­ter­day’s Elec­toral Col­lege ex­er­cise to elect a Pres­i­dent for the next five years.

Khan, who re­served com­ment on the out­come, said he’d con­tin­ue “drink­ing mi wa­ter and mind­ing my own busi­ness.”

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, speak­ing af­ter the re­sults, said the elec­tion was done smooth­ly and du­ti­ful­ly.

“I con­grat­u­late the cit­i­zens who put their names for­ward to be con­sid­ered for this post of Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It was an elec­toral process and we can still be proud not know­ing of a bet­ter way to do it and out of that process, this cham­ber has cho­sen a dis­tin­guished daugh­ter of T&T,” the PM said.

“I’d like to ask all cit­i­zens to ac­knowl­edge this plus on T&T’s score­card... as there are many oth­ers—big­ger, taller and wider than us—who have great dif­fi­cul­ty in be­ing able to car­ry out such a process so smooth­ly.

“On be­half of all of us—peo­ple of T&T—who just elect­ed a Pres­i­dent, as our head of state, let’s go for­ward think­ing pos­i­tive­ly...”

But Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, com­ment­ing af­ter the re­sult, im­me­di­ate­ly served no­tice

“...That the Op­po­si­tion will hold that of­fice (Pres­i­dent) to scruti­ny in the best in­ter­ests of the peo­ple...” (See page 6)

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Paul Richards al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Kan­ga­loo.

The elec­tion of T&T’s sec­ond fe­male Pres­i­dent took place at the Red House (Sen­ate) cham­ber against the back­drop of protests from UNC sup­port­ers out­side.

“Row­ley must go!...” they shout­ed.

In the elec­tion pro­ce­dure, a roll call of mem­bers was done and sig­na­to­ries of each can­di­date were an­nounced. All 22 PNM MPs were sig­na­to­ries to Kan­ga­loo’s nom­i­na­tion. The UNC had 12 sig­na­to­ries for Ra­jah-Khan.

The process...

Mem­bers were then called in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der to do their bal­lots at the vot­ing booth. This start­ed at 2.06 pm, with PNM’s Faris Al-Rawi, UNC’s Kadi­jah Ameen and House Speak­er An­nisette-George, as well as oth­ers.

Vot­ing closed at 3.26 pm with In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Evans Welch and PNM’s Allyson West and Stu­art Young last.

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from each side - PNM’s Lisa Mor­ris Julien and UNC’s Dave Tan­coo—then sat with the Clerk of the House as bal­lots were count­ed.

In to­tal re­sults, Clerk of the House Jacquie Samp­son-Meiguel con­firmed 48 bal­lots for Kan­ga­loo and 22 for Ra­jah-Khan. There were al­so three spoiled bal­lots.

Apart from the ob­vi­ous sup­port for Kan­ga­loo— from PNM’s 22 MPs and 16 PNM Sen­a­tors—and oth­er votes for Kan­ga­loo, of­fi­cials not­ed the Speak­er al­so has a vote.

At the con­clu­sion, House Speak­er (Elec­toral Col­lege chair­man) Bridgid An­nisette-George then said, “I here­by an­nounce that Ms Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo has ob­tained the greater num­ber of votes cast and as such is elect­ed as the Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go...”

This was met with long, loud desk-thump­ing sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment bench­es.

Khan: I’ll press on

Af­ter the re­sults were con­firmed, de­feat­ed Op­po­si­tion nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent, Is­rael Ra­jah-Khan SC, said, “As a re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zen, I did my civic du­ty in con­sent­ing to be a nom­i­nee for the elec­tion of Pres­i­dent of our coun­try.

“I was not elect­ed. And out of re­spect for the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, it is pru­dent at this point in time, that I make no com­ment on the core mat­ter of the out­come of the elec­tion of the sev­enth Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He added, “Al­though I of­ten write and ver­bal­ly com­ment on po­lit­i­cal is­sues fac­ing the coun­try, I am not a politi­cian. But as a civic-mind­ed and re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zen, I will con­tin­ue to com­ment on po­lit­i­cal is­sues fac­ing our coun­try.

“I am an ad­vo­cate at the Crim­i­nal Bar and out­side of my pro­fes­sion­al life, I am an ex­treme­ly pri­vate per­son and I in­tend to con­tin­ue to keep it that way.

“So, as a re­sult of this de­feat for the po­si­tion of Pres­i­dent, I have re­treat­ed in­to a cor­ner just ‘drink­ing mih wa­ter and mind­ing mih busi­ness’.”

PM con­grat­u­lates both nom­i­nees

Fol­low­ing the elec­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said, “It is with plea­sure that I stand to ac­knowl­edge on be­half of my con­stituents, col­leagues and all in this Elec­toral Col­lege that we in T&T can say with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion, that our well-writ­ten Con­sti­tu­tion has func­tioned smooth­ly...”

Row­ley said pub­lic ser­vice is ho­n­ourable.

“I’d like to con­grat­u­late the­both nom­i­nees who put their names for­ward to be con­sid­ered for this post,” he said.

Con­grat­u­lat­ing Kan­ga­loo, Row­ley thanked her fam­i­ly for pre­sent­ing her to the na­tion to pro­vide the ser­vice she’ll pro­vide.

“May the Pres­i­dent serve all of us with­out fear or favour, with­out mal­ice or ill will for the ben­e­fit of all the peo­ple.”

In an ear­li­er 15-minute ad­dress pre­sent­ing Kan­ga­loo’s pro­file Row­ley said, “Ms Kan­ga­loo’s life has been filled with ser­vice to the peo­ple of T&T.”

Among as­pects, he not­ed that as Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, Kan­ga­loo has act­ed as Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic on no few­er than 33 oc­ca­sions.

“It is with a sense of great pride that as Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin West and along with all oth­er mem­bers who signed or oth­er­wise en­dorse her nom­i­na­tion that, as Prime Min­is­ter of this Re­pub­lic, that I present Ms Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo as a most wor­thy can­di­date for the con­sid­er­a­tion of this es­teemed Elec­toral Col­lege to be elect­ed to the po­si­tion of Pres­i­dent.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in pre­sent­ing Khan, had said, “To­day, we must ful­fil a crit­i­cal and es­sen­tial com­po­nent of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­sti­tu­tion. The po­si­tion of Pres­i­dent of our Re­pub­lic is not mere­ly a cer­e­mo­ni­al role. It serves as a crit­i­cal guardrail in the de­fence of our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and free­doms.

“The cit­i­zens of our na­tion ex­pect and re­quire that the Pres­i­dent will per­form his/her du­ties in the in­ter­est of all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of race, colour, re­li­gion, sex or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion. The mem­bers on this side of the House be­lieve that our nom­i­nee em­bod­ies all the re­quire­ments and qual­i­ties that are nec­es­sary for this dis­tin­guished of­fice.

“Mr Khan is fair and fear­less, fierce­ly in­de­pen­dent and strong-willed. He pos­sess­es the in­dis­pens­able qual­i­ties of mer­it, abil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty which are need­ed to ef­fec­tive­ly per­form the oner­ous du­ties of the Pres­i­dent of our coun­try. He is not a ‘yes Mr Prime Min­is­ter’ per­son.”

Af­ter pre­sent­ing Ra­jah-Khan’s back­ground, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that giv­en that Ra­jah-Khan has al­ways an­swered the calls of na­tion­al du­ty and his life-long com­mit­ment to mak­ing T&T a bet­ter na­tion, “It is our view that he will of­fer cred­i­bil­i­ty, in­tegri­ty and loy­al ser­vice to the peo­ple of our Re­pub­lic through the of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.”

“Giv­en the sig­nif­i­cant is­sues fac­ing our na­tion and giv­en the need to move for­ward as a unit­ed na­tion, Mr Is­rael Ra­jah-Khan SC is the best per­son to serve as the Pres­i­dent of T&T.

“I call on mem­bers of this Elec­toral Col­lege to place coun­try be­fore par­ty, to place peo­ple be­fore pol­i­tics and to place the Con­sti­tu­tion be­fore per­son­al agen­da as we aim to pre­serve the sa­cred in­de­pen­dence of the of­fice of Pres­i­dent...I urge you to make the saga­cious de­ci­sion and cast your vote in favour of Is­rael B Ra­jah-Khan SC. His­to­ry will not ab­solve you, if you do oth­er­wise.”