To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

If Moth­er's Day is a cel­e­bra­tion of women's abil­i­ty to change the world through their nur­tur­ing na­ture, it is al­so a mo­ment to cel­e­brate the long over­due ca­pac­i­ty of women to shape the world even more di­rect­ly, in busi­ness, in pro­fes­sion­al prac­tice and, yes, in pol­i­tics. On May 24, the elec­torate will be asked to cast their vote for an in­spir­ing num­ber of women con­test­ing the elec­tion. Fac­ing the polls on be­half of the PNM and the UNC-COP Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship are 26 women, mak­ing up 31 per cent of the to­tal slate of 82 can­di­dates be­ing of­fered by both par­ties. With women rep­re­sent­ing a bit less than one-third of the can­di­dates for this year's gen­er­al elec­tion, it might seem that their rep­re­sen­ta­tion in pol­i­tics is a bit be­hind the curve on women's par­tic­i­pa­tion in oth­er as­pects of Trinidad and To­ba­go's de­vel­op­ment.

But it wasn't un­til 1961 that the first woman was elect­ed to the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Is­abel Ur­su­la Teshea brought home the Port-of-Spain East seat for the PNM that year, in­tro­duc­ing to the na­tion's elec­tions the idea of not just fe­male equal­i­ty, but of women in tri­umph on the cam­paign trail. The elec­tions of 1946 and 1956 of­fered no women for can­di­da­cy, but it some­how seems ap­pro­pri­ate that on the eve of Trinidad and To­ba­go's in­de­pen­dence from Britain that it should be­gin its own eman­ci­pa­tion from gen­der in­equal­i­ty in its pol­i­tics. It would not be un­til 1966 that Teshea would be joined in Par­lia­ment by Muriel Don­awa, who won the Fyz­abad seat for the PNM.

It would be Don­awa, by then mar­i­tal­ly-hy­phen­at­ed to Muriel Don­awa-Mc­David­son, who would help the PNM to re­tain its pres­ence in Par­lia­ment af­ter the 1986 rout of the par­ty. Don­awa-Mc­David­son, by then an im­pos­ing fig­ure in the par­ty's pol­i­tics and well-known for her abil­i­ty to ral­ly vot­ing women to the PNM's po­lit­i­cal cause, held on to the Laven­tille seat, along with Mor­ris Mar­shall in Port-of-Spain East and Patrick Man­ning, who rep­re­sent­ed San Fer­nan­do East. That one-third par­i­ty would not hold for long, how­ev­er, as the par­ty be­gan rein­vent­ing it­self and de­ter­mined­ly cast­ing aside long-stand­ing cam­paign­ers now seen as li­a­bil­i­ties. Don­awa-Mc­David­son, de­spite her long years as ser­vice and se­nior­i­ty, was not seen as a ral­ly­ing point, but as a lin­ger­ing lega­cy of a dis­cred­it­ed old guard.

In 2010, there is a sharp in­crease in the num­ber of women con­test­ing the polls, and their pres­ence is like­ly to be key in in­flu­enc­ing vot­ers to sup­port one par­ty or the oth­er on the cam­paign trail. The com­mand­ing pres­ence of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has cap­sised the sta­tus quo of tra­di­tion­al par­ty pol­i­tics; be­gin­ning with her star­tling and de­ci­sive vic­to­ry in the UNC's in­ter­nal elec­tions, over two male ri­vals gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered to be stronger can­di­dates. Her dra­mat­ic lead in that elec­tion over Bas­deo Pan­day and Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj not on­ly sig­nalled a fun­da­men­tal change in that par­ty's ex­pec­ta­tions of its lead­ers; it al­so in­di­cat­ed to the po­lit­i­cal par­ties who now form the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion that the UNC, un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar, would not be busi­ness as usu­al.

It is a mat­ter of in­dis­putable fact that the ag­gre­ga­tion fac­ing the polls in op­po­si­tion to the PNM is one that was ca­pa­bly and ro­bust­ly ral­lied by the UNC's po­lit­i­cal leader, who first jumped the hur­dle of as­sem­bling the frac­tured forces of her par­ty and then pole-vault­ed the once-im­pass­able ob­jec­tions of the oth­er par­ties in op­po­si­tion to join­ing forces on the hus­tings. Con­sid­er the ap­par­ent­ly heart­felt en­dorse­ments of men like Er­rol McLeod, Win­ston Dook­er­an, Jack Warn­er and Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as their un­equiv­o­cal leader and con­tem­plate what it must have tak­en to steer such wil­ful heads in the same di­rec­tion. The PNM is not to be slight­ed in its com­mit­ment to fe­male equal­i­ty, ei­ther in pol­i­tics or on the hus­tings.

Be­yond its ear­ly work in bring­ing women to Par­lia­ment, the PNM has led among po­lit­i­cal par­ties in plac­ing women on its bal­lots and in po­si­tions of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in Cab­i­net. It's spu­ri­ous to count rel­a­tive num­bers of women among the can­di­dates of each par­ty. While the PNM is of­fer­ing 14 to the coali­tion's 12, more im­por­tant is the sense among these women that they are par­tic­i­pat­ing in an elec­tion that will give them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ef­fect re­al change. In mak­ing that change, they have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­flu­ence the qual­i­ty of cam­paign­ing with their pres­ence and their speech­es and to of­fer the elec­torate a fore­taste of the qual­i­ty of gov­er­nance they pro­pose to of­fer to the na­tion if they are cho­sen to rep­re­sent their con­stituen­cies.