Shal­iza Has­sanali

A book high­light­ing the quest by the coun­try's first fe­male leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for prime min­is­ter­ship is to be launched to­day

Writ­ten by jour­nal­ist, re­searcher and pub­lish­er Dr Kris Ram­per­sad, the book en­ti­tled Through The Po­lit­i­cal Glass Ceil­ing–Race to Prime Min­is­ter­ship by Trinidad and To­ba­go's First Fe­male is a com­pi­la­tion of se­lect­ed speech­es of Per­sad-Bisses­sar against the back­drop of con­tend­ing mi­nor­i­ty-ver­sus-dom­i­nant fac­tors of cul­ture, gen­der and ge­og­ra­phy, as T&T strug­gles for ar­tic­u­la­tion and de­f­i­n­i­tion of a tru­ly en­com­pass­ing na­tion­al iden­ti­ty. The book is ex­pect­ed to be launched at Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, with the bless­ing and pres­ence of Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Ram­per­sad says the book presents the para­dox of pol­i­tics and so­ci­ety in T&T in the con­text of the con­test for lead­er­ship be­tween the coun­try's longest stand­ing po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ty, the PNM, and Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is vy­ing for the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter. The book, con­sist­ing in­tro­duc­tion, con­text and analy­ses ranges through the coun­try's ex­pe­ri­ences with po­lit­i­cal par­ties un­der Dr Er­ic Williams to the pe­ri­od of vot­ing dead­lock at the turn of the cen­tu­ry, in­volv­ing Bas­deo Pan­day and Patrick Man­ning.