Gail Alexan­der

Thanks to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes and hope that Pres­i­dent-elect Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo could one day be­come the “moth­er of the na­tion.”

This was in­di­cat­ed by some In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors af­ter Kan­ga­loo be­came Pres­i­dent elect on Fri­day.

Speak­ing in the Elec­toral Col­lege af­ter Kan­ga­loo was elect­ed– with 48 votes—In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Paul Richards said, “It is my dis­tinct ho­n­our to bring con­grat­u­la­tions, on be­half of the mem­bers of the In­de­pen­dent bench, to Pres­i­dent-elect Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo, on be­ing elect­ed by this Elec­toral Col­lege, to the post of Pres­i­dent-elect.”

“Pres­i­dent-elect Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s con­sis­tent dis­play of dig­ni­ty, re­spect, tem­per­ance, pa­tience and com­pas­sion, dur­ing her tenure as Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, will no doubt bode well and be brought to bear, in the ser­vice of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in this new rule as Head of State.”

“’We again con­grat­u­late Pres­i­dent-elect Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo and wish her all the best for a suc­cess­ful tenure as Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of T&T. I would al­so like to con­vey our deep­est ap­pre­ci­a­tion, grat­i­tude and thanks to her Ex­cel­len­cy Paula Mae Weekes ORTT, Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic and Com­man­der in Chief of the armed forces for her ster­ling ser­vice to the peo­ple of T&T. We wish her Ex­cel­len­cy and her fam­i­ly all the best for peace, safe­ty, pros­per­i­ty and hap­pi­ness in the fu­ture.”

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George al­so thanked Weekes.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh, con­grat­u­lat­ing Kan­ga­loo, added, “If one looks at our three top po­si­tions , the Pres­i­dent, the PM and the Chief Jus­tice, her as­cent to this of­fice, is now more re­flec­tive of our mo­sa­ic so­ci­ety.”

“She has the ex­pe­ri­ence as a reg­is­trar in the ju­di­cia­ry, as a min­is­ter in the ex­ec­u­tive and a sen­a­tor in the leg­is­la­ture. I think it is ger­mane that our next Head of State has the knowl­edge on how all three arms of the state func­tion and their short­com­ings. A tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty now rests on her shoul­ders and I think she can be in­no­v­a­tive enough to be able to use her in­flu­ence to the ben­e­fit of our peo­ple.”

Deyals­ingh added, “Even in a large­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al of­fice, an ef­fec­tive Head of State could pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ence pub­lic pol­i­cy. Be­sides ful­fill­ing her im­por­tant con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date , she may have an op­por­tu­ni­ty, if she so de­sires, to be more en­gag­ing to our peo­ple and cre­ate a peo­ple’s man­date.”

“A na­tion­al Pres­i­dent could emerge as a voice of rea­son ap­peal­ing to politi­cians on both sides of the house and she could em­pathise with the plight of the peo­ple on is­sues like crime, pover­ty and flood­ing. She needs to serve our peo­ple with bal­ance, poise, com­po­sure, wis­dom and ma­tu­ri­ty. I hope one day she can earn the ti­tle as the moth­er of our na­tion.”

He al­so not­ed, “An in­de­pen­dent and forth­right Head of State could speak truth to pow­er, and by her pub­lic ut­ter­ance and her man­dat­ed pri­vate meet­ings with the PM, could at­tempt to in­flu­ence changes ben­e­fi­cial to our peo­ple.

“Our new era may re­quire her to adopt new strate­gies to en­gage our pop­u­la­tion. Our last Pres­i­dent had a beau­ti­ful thing go­ing in en­ter­tain­ing young chil­dren at the Pres­i­dent’s House. I hope this con­tin­ues.”

Deyals­ingh said Kan­ga­loo will be scru­ti­nised in her ap­point­ments to in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sions and “Time will tell if she has lived up to our ex­pec­ta­tions, but she should be giv­en a chance to prove her­self.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my added, “The process was smooth and I’m hap­py I was part of it—Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Pres­i­dent-elect.”