Resh­ma Ra­goonath

With­in two hours of the clos­ing of polls UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for­mal­ly de­clared that she re­tained her seat with a lit­tle over 50 per cent of the votes tal­lied yes­ter­day as thun­der­ous ap­plause erupt­ed at her Siparia con­stituen­cy of­fice. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, dressed in a yel­low silk blouse and black shirt, emerged from her of­fice around 7.50 pm and en­tered the con­fer­ence room at the top floor of her Pe­nal Main Road, Pe­nal, of­fice where she made the de­c­la­ra­tion.

She beamed bright­ly as she clenched her fist in vic­to­ry. Her com­peti­tor, the PNM's can­di­date Vidya De­ok­iesingh, was lag­ging a far cry be­hind the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date. Per­sad-Bisses­sar paused from her elec­toral cel­e­bra­tions to wish one of her longest-serv­ing ac­tivists, Mol­ly Ho­sein, hap­py birth­day as they cut a cake to­geth­er. A sea of yel­low greet­ed the UNC leader mob­bing her as she en­tered the court­yard at the of­fice to de­clare all roads led to UNC head­quar­ters, Ren­zi Com­plex, Cou­va.