Fran­cis Joseph

The Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar you are see­ing to­day is not the Kam­la of a year ago.

Sim­ply put, she is tougher than be­fore, she is stand­ing firm­ly, and she is not tak­ing non­sense from her male col­leagues. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been through enough, hu­mil­i­at­ed by sev­er­al, but had the strength to re­gain her com­po­sure and sit one step clos­er to be­com­ing the first fe­male prime min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, 58, start­ed her climb in Oc­to­ber 1987 when she was ad­mit­ted to the bar of T&T. At age 35, she was the top law stu­dent at Hugh Wood­ing Law School, putting her younger col­leagues in the shade. It was clear from the first in­ter­view she gave (in the Guardian) that this was a woman who was not go­ing to lie down and play dead.

From that ear­ly time, she got in­volved with the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), be­com­ing an al­der­man with the St Patrick Coun­ty Coun­cil (now the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion). She en­tered the cham­bers of Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, whom she has al­ways giv­en praise as the per­son who launched her le­gal ca­reer.

Af­ter Bas­deo Pan­day broke away from the NAR, he formed his own par­ty, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). In 1994, Per­sad-Bisses­sar joined the UNC and be­came an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor. She was prepar­ing for big­ger things. When then Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning called a snap elec­tion in No­vem­ber 1995, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­test the Siparia seat. While oth­er can­di­dates were an­nounced, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was the last to be ap­proved, as one man did not want her to be a can­di­date al­though Pan­day had ap­proved. She got the nod and won her seat hand­some­ly. The elec­tion end­ed in a 17-17 tie be­tween the PNM and UNC, with the NAR get­ting the two To­ba­go seats. ANR Robin­son and Pamela Nichol­son joined with the UNC and Pan­day be­came the prime min­is­ter. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ap­point­ed the first fe­male at­tor­ney gen­er­al, but she nev­er went past the hon­ey­moon pe­ri­od. Ma­haraj, her men­tor, re­placed her af­ter three months, and a po­si­tion of Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs was cre­at­ed and she was post­ed there. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was con­fined to the po­lit­i­cal dog­house, and she griev­ed for a long time. But de­spite the treat­ment, she re­mained loy­al to Pan­day.

She be­came AG a sec­ond time in 2001 when Ma­haraj, along with Ralph Maraj and Trevor Su­dama, were fired by Pan­day. Af­ter an 18-18 elec­tion tie be­tween PNM and UNC, Robin­son, who was then pres­i­dent, hand­ed Gov­ern­ment to Man­ning and the UNC went out of of­fice. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mained loy­al to Pan­day and con­tin­ued to gain the most votes in the gen­er­al elec­tion. When Pan­day was jailed in April 2006 for fail­ing to de­clare his Natwest Lon­don bank ac­count to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ap­point­ed Op­po­si­tion Leader. When Pan­day was sus­pend­ed by House Speak­er Bar­ry Sinanan in 2007 for dis­obey­ing the chair, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was again ap­point­ed the Op­po­si­tion Leader. Pan­day re­turned to the House af­ter the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion and be­came Op­po­si­tion Leader again.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mained in his cor­ner, de­spite the rant­i­ng of a se­lect­ed few, but she knew her time would come as Pan­day was not get­ting younger. There were oth­ers in the par­ty who felt they were lead­er­ship ma­te­r­i­al. So, when Pan­day an­nounced Jan­u­ary 24, 2010 would be in­ter­nal elec­tions in the UNC, Per­sad-Bisses­sar threw her hat in the ring for po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship. She was up against her gu­ru, Pan­day, and le­gal men­tor, Ma­haraj. It was go­ing to be a bru­tal bat­tle for lead­er­ship and sur­vival. All guns were trained on Per­sad-Bisses­sar but she came out of it un­scathed. She got more than 13,000 votes –ten times more than Pan­day, and as Spar­row sang years ago, ten to one is mur­der. Ma­haraj got less than 800 and he was wiped out. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's strength must lie with her sis­ter, Wat­tie, who lives in Eng­land, but is here for this elec­tion of all elec­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar moves around in Oba­ma style, hold­ing hands with her hus­band, Gre­go­ry, who is en­joy­ing every minute of this cam­paign. Those around her are say­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar has tak­en con­trol of her par­ty... and maybe des­tiny. She calls the shots and those around her are ready for the chal­lenge. On­ly time will tell if she be­comes the new prime min­is­ter of T&T. n See more tonight on CNC3 News and to­mor­row on CNC3's Ear­ly Morn­ing Show?