Fran­cis Joseph

Thir­ty sev­en-year-old Anand Ram­lo­gan was last night be­ing strong­ly tipped to be named At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. If Ram­lo­gan is se­lect­ed, he would be sworn in to­day, short­ly af­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for­mal­ly as­sumes the post of Prime Min­is­ter. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is sched­uled to be sworn in at 4 pm at Knowsley Build­ing, Port-of- Spain, tra­di­tion­al of­fice of the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs. Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards will con­duct the swear­ing-in. The roof of Pres­i­dent's House col­lapsed two weeks ago, leav­ing the head of state with­out a prop­er venue to host for­mal func­tions. Ram­lo­gan last night met the Prime Min­is­ter-elect. The south­ern-based at­tor­ney is a hu­man rights lawyer and an ad­vo­cate for so­cial jus­tice. Two oth­er at­tor­neys had been pro­ject­ed yes­ter­day as pos­si­ble can­di­dates for the post of AG, but by the end of the day, Ram­lo­gan was seen as the front run­ner. Ram­lo­gan had been no­tice­ably ab­sent from po­lit­i­cal meet­ings in the past weeks, al­though he was a plat­form speak­er in Gas­par­il­lo when Per­sad-Bisses­sar rolled in­to the Tabaquite con­stituen­cy some time ago.

He was one of three peo­ple screened for the Tabaquite seat, but none of those screened was cho­sen. The se­lect­ed can­di­date was Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan. In 2007, Ram­lo­gan fought the Tabaquite seat for as a Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) can­di­date, los­ing out to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj. In the run-up to the elec­tion, Ram­lo­gan's of­fice in San Fer­nan­do was fire­bombed. No one was held for that in­ci­dent. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is keep­ing the names of her Cab­i­net close to her chest. Her­bert Vol­ney, who re­signed from the ju­di­cia­ry last month and suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the St Joseph seat for the UNC, is ex­pect­ed to be Min­is­ter of Jus­tice in a new­ly-cre­at­ed min­istry.

Prakash Ra­mad­har, who won the St Au­gus­tine seat for the COP, is ex­pect­ed to be the Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs. Win­ston Dook­er­an, po­lit­i­cal leader of the COP, is ex­pect­ed to be the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance. He won the Tu­na­puna seat in Mon­day's gen­er­al elec­tion. Er­rol McLeod, for­mer pres­i­dent-gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU), is ex­pect­ed to be the Min­is­ter of Labour, hav­ing won the Pointe-a-Pierre seat. Ram­bachan is be­ing tout­ed to be Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. There is a toss-up for the Min­istry of Health, with con­tenders Dr Fuad Khan and Dr Tim Gopeesingh. UNC Chair­man Jack Warn­er, who had ear­li­er said he did not want a min­is­te­r­i­al po­si­tion, opt­ing to re­main as Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent, is now be­ing tipped to be Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs. There is spec­u­la­tion over who would be named Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, at a time when the mur­der rate has gone past 200 and count­ing. The T&T Guardian was in­formed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar may choose this min­is­ter from out­side her elect­ed MPs.

ABOUT ANAND RAM­LO­GAN

Anand Ram­lo­gan, who was born in 1973, is a hu­man rights at­tor­ney and a grad­u­ate of Queen Mary and West­field Col­lege in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and Uni­ver­si­ty of West­min­ster. He has fought and won many land­mark cas­es that have led to many changes in the law. He has rep­re­sent­ed many a down­trod­den cit­i­zen and is re­defin­ing the law in the area of un­fair­ness and dis­crim­i­na­tion. He was one of the youngest at­tor­neys from the Com­mon­wealth to ad­dress the Law Lords of the Privy Coun­cil and is a door ten­ant at Char­ter Cham­bers in Lon­don. His cas­es have been the sub­ject of many ar­ti­cles in in­ter­na­tion­al law jour­nals and he gives guest lec­tures in var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties in Lon­don. He now prac­tis­es law with Sir Fen­ton Ram­sa­hoye, for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Guyana and Pro­fes­sor of Law. Most no­tably, he has fought for the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha against the Trin­i­ty Cross and for a ra­dio li­cence. He al­so has fought and won for many pub­lic ser­vants, such as De­vant Ma­haraj and Mar­lene Coudray, with re­spect to claims of abuse of pow­er.