Ira Math­ur

On the morn­ing of my in­ter­view with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar I glimpsed a cin­e­mat­ic im­age of her. She was lit at the podi­um at NA­PA dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) Caribbean launch in a snap­py pur­ple beige-lined suit. Un­der her, in the front row, were mem­bers of her Cab­i­net-all men. I had to re­press a gig­gle at this rare re­ver­sal of tra­di­tion­al roles-alert school­boys un­der the queen bee. That im­age is her abid­ing lega­cy to our daugh­ters, of clear­ing their way in a still very un­equal world.

The woman I met last Thurs­day in her of­fice in the Par­lia­ment on Wright­son Road was more than her one-di­men­sion­al im­age: the tri­umphant Prime Min­is­ter; the glam glo­be­trot­ter; and to some, the out-of-touch queen. I ex­pect­ed her un­fail­ing po­lite­ness that var­ied from warm to icy, and her quick ri­poste, rem­i­nis­cent of her for­mer leader and neme­sis, Bas­deo Pan­day. Be­yond the salmon pink lip­stick smile, I saw she was all there, in charge. Her pub­lic per­sona may be at times crude­ly pop­ulist, the la­dy with the ham­pers, the la­dy launch­ing "Colour Me Or­ange."

I met an A-type over­achiev­er, one eye on a blink­ing black­ber­ry, (she reads all our pa­pers on­line) is aca­d­e­m­ic, lit­er­ary even, with a pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Her hi­lar­i­ous but bru­tal tal­ent for mim­ic­ry shows she can dis­sect peo­ple with sur­gi­cal pre­ci­sion. She's gut­sy, rather than emo­tion­al, and main­tains a steely cool un­der the harsh­est of crit­i­cisms. Af­ter our two-hour in­ter­view she briskly, on an emp­ty stom­ach, took off to Par­lia­ment at 9 pm. This is the first of a two-part in­ter­view with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Q: Madam PM, you have be­come a fash­ion­ista, your of­fice seem­ing­ly over­shad­owed by your pro­fu­sion of hats, saris, suits, dress­es. One crit­ic re­cent­ly dubbed you the Imel­da Mar­cos of the Caribbean. Aren't you afraid of be­ing triv­i­alised, dis­missed as a pret­ty face?

A: (Laughs) Imel­da was about shoes, wasn't she? I have two favourites, one which I am wear­ing. Peo­ple will al­ways talk. If I look dowdy peo­ple will say Kam­la mashed up, gone through. If you look at old pic­tures of me I have al­ways dressed well. Not as a thing apart but as an ex­ten­sion of who I am, 100 per cent Tri­ni woman. I like dash and flair. It's me. My her­itage of five con­ti­nents shows in my hats and suits, to saris, African or Chi­nese wear. I don't have a styl­ist, my sis­ter buys my clothes. When I wake up in the morn­ing, like every work­ing woman, if I feel to wear red, blue or black I do just that. I em­body mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. What's wrong with that?

It's been al­most two years since your May 24, 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry. Your per­son­al pop­u­lar­i­ty hasn't waned, but there is def­i­nite dis­ap­point­ment from a na­tion who had high hopes of change. From fis­sures and cracks with­in the coali­tion, to the per­cep­tion of a stag­nant econ­o­my, to per­ceived racial im­bal­ances on state boards, to al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, and fi­nal­ly, crime, you are dogged with prob­lems. Have you got a han­dle on it?

First­ly, the coali­tion. We do have dif­fer­ences of opin­ion. That's how we came to­geth­er in the first place. To bring di­ver­si­ty to the ta­ble. You have a five-par­ty part­ner­ship with­in one par­ty so nat­u­ral­ly there are dif­fer­ences of opin­ion. We thrash things out and build con­sen­sus. There may be cracks or fis­sures but there are no precipices, canyons, no great di­vi­sions. Our min­is­ters pull to­geth­er on core is­sues. Sor­ry, but I don't see us mash­ing up.

Jack Warn­er did a volte face on the hang­ing pe­ti­tion. Did you give him a rap on the knuck­les?

You have to ask Jack that. Re­gard­ing the econ­o­my, if you lis­ten to the Fi­nance Min­is­ter now in Par­lia­ment as we do this in­ter­view, he is giv­ing us a glob­al pic­ture of a glob­al re­ces­sion, of the Eu­ro­pean coun­tries which have vir­tu­al­ly shut down, of slow­ing economies in Asia. In this glob­al cli­mate we have achieved sta­bil­i­ty. Don't knock it. Sta­bil­i­ty is a mir­a­cle, es­pe­cial­ly for a tiny na­tion like ours when con­ti­nents are bend­ing un­der glob­al pres­sure. When we came in the trea­sury was al­most emp­ty. Now we are sta­ble. That's huge. We have a long list of achieve­ments. We are very good at not com­mu­ni­cat­ing what we have done. We are too busy work­ing to keep this ship afloat.

Third­ly, re­gard­ing racial im­bal­ances on the state boards, go through every state board in the past 15 years and you will be amazed at the past im­bal­ance. This is the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive T&T gov­ern­ment we've ever had of our di­verse peo­ples, on the bench, in Cab­i­net, sen­a­tors, MPS. There are those who are bent on di­vid­ing the pop­u­la­tion. That's their job, to cre­ate and feed that per­cep­tion. It's pa­thet­ic they are will­ing to give up the coun­try's sta­bil­i­ty for per­son­al po­lit­i­cal gain. Fourth­ly, I will not tol­er­ate cor­rup­tion in Gov­ern­ment. I have had no ev­i­dence of it de­spite many far­fetched al­le­ga­tions, and if it's there we will deal with it with the full force of the law. That's why the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion to help fight white-col­lar crime is so im­por­tant and why the de­ci­sion to pull out, the volte face, by the Op­po­si­tion in the 11th hour is hyp­o­crit­i­cal and dam­ag­ing to the coun­try. We have no choice but to com­plete the bill with or with­out them, take it to Par­lia­ment, let the peo­ple de­cide.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley said your "kiss­ing the foot" of the In­di­an Pres­i­dent Prat­i­b­ha Patil dur­ing your re­cent vis­it there while rep­re­sent­ing T&T as Prime Min­is­ter was an act of sub­servience, de­mean­ing to our peo­ple.

I met her Ex­cel­len­cy Prat­i­b­ha Patil the day be­fore she pre­sent­ed me with the award. We de­vel­oped an im­me­di­ate rap­port. I re­spect­ed her, felt an affin­i­ty with her on many lev­els. She's a warm hu­man be­ing and re­mind­ed me of my aji, my pa­ter­nal grand­moth­er. I saw that she was not just a fig­ure head. She would have to have been a tremen­dous­ly coura­geous and brave woman to go in­to pol­i­tics in In­dia at just 29. Her brave strug­gles took her to the high­est of­fice in In­dia to­day and in some small way, re­mind­ed me of my own strug­gles. At the of­fi­cial func­tion of the In­di­an Di­as­po­ra func­tion, Pravasi Bhariya Sam­man em­braced me first, then put the Di­as­po­ra award the medal around my neck. I didn't plan it, I bent down spon­ta­neous­ly in the an­cient ges­ture of re­spect to touch her feet. It was to­tal­ly the right thing to do. I've done it all my grow­ing up years in Trinidad to old­er peo­ple.

You don't "kiss a foot." As soon as you bow down in this old tra­di­tion, they lift you up and em­brace you and that's what hap­pened. Peo­ple made a moun­tain out of a mole­hill. All ges­tures of hu­mil­i­ty of bow­ing in Japan, of kiss­ing the ring of the Pope, of re­ceiv­ing the robes of an African chief with grace, are about re­spect which don't ever take any­thing from us, but add to us as a peo­ple. Maybe we need a re­turn to those lost val­ues. No, I added to our dig­ni­ty as a peo­ple. Noth­ing was tak­en away.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day has be­gun screen­ing for a slate for "Gen­er­a­tion Next" os­ten­si­bly "to en­sure that the par­ty is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all its mem­bers" for the up­com­ing March 24 UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions. Will this see the rise of Mikela Pan­day? Are you threat­ened?

No. At the re­cent UNC cel­e­bra­tions in Cou­va 30,000 peo­ple showed up to show their sup­port. I told them then you own this par­ty, not the leader or any mem­ber of Na­tex-our na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive and I main­tain that. Gen­er­a­tion X, Mikela, any­one is en­ti­tled like any oth­er mem­ber to con­test po­si­tions but I am dis­ap­point­ed that Bas­deo Pan­day is not coura­geous enough to con­test. I was look­ing for­ward to beat­ing him again, this time 40 to one.

Res­i­dents of Siparia re­cent­ly protest­ed at your per­ceived ne­glect of your con­stituen­cy-bad roads, poor in­fra­struc­ture-by light­ing tyres and block­ing roads with de­bris. They say their com­plaints at the con­stituen­cy of­fice have gone unan­swered, that you are nev­er there. Do you see this as a por­tent of loss of sup­port coun­try­wide?

It was not a protest of the whole con­stituen­cy but a group of res­i­dents some of whom have apol­o­gised for block­ing the road and in­con­ve­nienc­ing oth­er res­i­dents. Peo­ple are free to hold peace­ful demon­stra­tions. The con­stituen­cy of­fice is open to them as a bet­ter al­ter­na­tive. I share the con­cerns of the res­i­dents. We've had a his­to­ry of ne­glect. A lot of things need fix­ing. All can't be done all at once. Progress has to be shared. It's hap­pen­ing. I can pro­vide you a list from in­creased wa­ter sup­ply, to school be­ing re­paired in Siparia.

Much as I want to, due to bud­get con­straints I can­not fix every road, every school, build every bridge, in every con­stituen­cy all at once. It's a dou­ble-edged sword hav­ing a prime min­is­ter as your MP. On the one hand, you are ac­cused of not serv­ing your con­stituen­cy, and on the oth­er if I con­cen­trate all my ef­forts on my con­stituents I will be ac­cused of do­ing so at the ex­pense of the rest of the coun­try, of be­ing un­fair.

• Next week KPB on her globe-trot­ting, her of­fice hours, crime, health and ed­u­ca­tion.