Yvonne Webb

Mar­lene Coudray, may­or of San Fer­nan­do, is no stranger to con­tro­ver­sy, nor has she been one to shy away from it. Hers is a name now etched in the po­lit­i­cal land­scape, as her change of al­le­giance from the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) threat­ens to break up the five-par­ty coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said this is no longer an is­sue, though the COP, led by Prakash Ra­mad­har, has begged to dif­fer. They want her out. So, too, some mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, who have been threat­en­ing to move a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against Coudray.

With re­spect to the squab­ble at the cor­po­ra­tion, she said, "I am not in any fight with any­body. My fight is for the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do." Coudray is a ca­reer pub­lic ser­vant, but her in­ter­est in par­ty pol­i­tics blos­somed in 2007, when she fought the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy seat as the can­di­date for the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP). She lost to the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, and re­turned to her job as CEO of the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion (SFCC), a po­si­tion she first held in 1993.

When then Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning called gen­er­al elec­tions in 2010, two and a half years be­fore they were con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due, Coudray, a di­vorced moth­er of two and grand­moth­er of three, was led to be­lieve she would be her par­ty's choice to con­test the San Fer­nan­do West seat once more. But the COP in­stead chose Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who is now the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

She has not en­joyed the best re­la­tion­ship with Seep­er­sad-Bachan. Peev­ed by the per­ceived snub, Coudray nev­er­the­less ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion to be­come the may­or of the sec­ond city, and in Au­gust 2010 chucked in the CEO job, re­fused a Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary po­si­tion and was sworn in as San Fer­nan­do's fourth fe­male may­or. (The oth­ers who paved the way for her were, the first fe­male may­or, Beryl Archibald-Critchlow, back in 1950, Gertrude Kir­ton and Hazel Rogers-Dick.)

Coudray served as CEO dur­ing Rogers-Dick's tenure as may­or. In Jan­u­ary, 2012, she sur­prised all, in­clud­ing the COP hi­er­ar­chy, when she filed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to con­test the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tion as one of the three deputy lead­ers. She was suc­cess­ful, se­cur­ing 7,635 votes, the third high­est num­ber of votes for any can­di­date. This is the po­lit­i­cal es­capade now at the cen­tre of the row among the main coali­tion part­ners.

But Coudray's may­or­ship has al­so been mired in con­tro­ver­sy. A stick­ler for rules and reg­u­la­tions, she has of­ten found her­self at odds with her peers as a re­sult. One San Fer­nan­do coun­cil­lor, Dar­ren McLeod, re­cent­ly re­signed from the UNC, at­tribut­ing some of his frus­tra­tion to her con­trol of the coun­cil.

Coudray has al­so ini­ti­at­ed le­gal pro­ceed­ings against the deputy may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali. Dur­ing her first few months in of­fice, she an­gered the pan fra­ter­ni­ty when she re­ferred to them as "greedy." That state­ment end­ed the in­volve­ment of pan dur­ing the City Day cel­e­bra­tions. The po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry al­so widened be­tween her and Re­grel­lo, CEO of TCL Skif­fle Bunch steel­band (now Ju­nior Sam­my Skif­fle), when he ac­cused her of treat­ing him with con­tempt.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the pa­n­yards and mas camps in 2011, Coudray, who ac­com­pa­nied Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters and oth­er mem­bers of the fra­ter­ni­ty, boy­cotted the Skif­fle Bunch pa­n­yard. Coudray's tough stance when it comes to civ­il ser­vice reg­u­la­tions, has earned her the ti­tle "Iron La­dy," a de­scrip­tion re­served for strong-willed women, and one as­so­ci­at­ed with Britain's on­ly fe­male prime min­is­ter, Mar­garet Thatch­er.

Long be­fore she de­clared her in­ter­est in seek­ing po­lit­i­cal of­fice and was ap­point­ed may­or, Coudray had weath­ered all kinds of po­lit­i­cal storms and emerged vic­to­ri­ous. The long-stand­ing part­ner of for­mer PNM Labour Min­is­ter Lawrence Achong, in an un­prece­dent­ed move, in 2004 Coudray mount­ed a le­gal chal­lenge against sit­ting prime min­is­ter Man­ning and won.

Coudray, as CEO, filed an ac­tion for ju­di­cial re­view against the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ty Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (SASC's) de­ci­sion in De­cem­ber 2003 to trans­fer her to the Point Fortin Bor­ough, where she had pre­vi­ous­ly served as Deputy Town Clerk.

In her law­suit, she ac­cused Man­ning of po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion, claim­ing he had vowed "to deal with her." She was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan, now At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, and in March 2004, emerged vic­to­ri­ous as the trans­fer was re­scind­ed. But in spite of her well-known bat­tles, Coudray pos­sess­es a soft­er side, as is ev­i­dent in the re­la­tion­ship she shares with her grand­chil­dren and the chil­dren she has "adopt­ed" from sev­er­al homes in San Fer­nan­do.

Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union Pres­i­dent Ains­ley Matthews re­called the many run-ins he and his union mem­bers, em­ployed by the SFCC, have had with Coudray, but al­so said, "I call her my princess." Matthews re­called his first en­counter with her.

"I was gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the union at the time, and she showed such great in­ter­est in the work­ers. Pri­or to her com­ing here, work­ers had to wait for three and four years be­fore they got their sev­er­ance. She changed all of that, and now when peo­ple...re­tire they get their ben­e­fits with­in months." He al­so cred­it­ed her with the many strides he and his col­leagues have made as a trade union, in im­prov­ing the terms and con­di­tions of work­ers.

Even though they be­long to dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal camps, Point Fortin May­or Clyde Paul has shared a per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al re­la­tion­ship with Coudray. "That (po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance) does not change the re­la­tion­ship," he stressed. He re­called that he was the Town Clerk when she first came to the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion as an au­di­tor, and then as deputy town clerk.

"She was al­ways pro­fes­sion­al, very versed in reg­u­la­tions. I had the ut­most trust in her. "Some peo­ple, for what­ev­er rea­son, did not feel too com­fort­able, be­cause she was al­ways very metic­u­lous." For­mer PNM May­or Ian Ather­ly al­so paid trib­ute to Coudray. He said he was a novice when he as­sumed the po­si­tion of may­or, and re­lied heav­i­ly on her to guide him.

"She is a very strong woman, knowl­edge­able in terms of the pub­lic ser­vice and the role she had to func­tion in. I teamed up with her, I gave her due re­spect and she in turn was very hap­py to part­ner with the po­lit­i­cal arm, to bring them and the ad­min­is­tra­tion to­geth­er, af­ter sev­en years, pri­or to my com­ing there, at log­ger­heads.

"She is a su­per-strong per­son, and very fixed in her ideas. "We had a very good run for three years and I re­gret not fin­ish­ing what we start­ed for the im­prove­ment of San Fer­nan­do," Ather­ly said.