Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has cre­at­ed po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry once again, win­ning her fourth con­sec­u­tive in­ter­nal lead­er­ship elec­tion since 2010 and do­ing so un­op­posed. The nom­i­na­tion-on­ly vic­to­ry comes just 90 days af­ter she led the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to a land­slide win in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, re­turn­ing the par­ty to gov­ern­ment with a com­mand­ing ma­jor­i­ty.

With no chal­lengers step­ping for­ward, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was of­fi­cial­ly de­clared re-elect­ed on nom­i­na­tion day, ef­fec­tive­ly end­ing the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­toral process be­fore bal­lots were even print­ed for the Au­gust 17 poll.

Scores of UNC sup­port­ers gath­ered at the par­ty’s Mulchan Seuchan Road, Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters on Sat­ur­day to wit­ness the mo­ment. Cheers erupt­ed as vet­er­an at­tor­ney and chair of the Elec­tion Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee (EMC), Ramesh Per­sad-Ma­haraj, made the for­mal de­c­la­ra­tion short­ly af­ter the 4 pm nom­i­na­tion dead­line.

“We con­firm that as of 4 pm to­day, there is no oth­er can­di­date for the post of po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress,” Per­sad-Ma­haraj an­nounced, as sup­port­ers clapped in cel­e­bra­tion.

Quot­ing the par­ty’s re­vised elec­tion rules, he added: “In the event that on­ly one can­di­date is valiant­ly nom­i­nat­ed, the com­mit­tee shall an­nounce that can­di­date as du­ly elect­ed un­op­posed to the of­fice of po­lit­i­cal leader and for­mal­ly end this elec­tion process.”

Clad in tra­di­tion­al African at­tire ahead of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar took the podi­um to thank her sup­port­ers and re­flect on her 15-year jour­ney at the helm of the UNC. She first con­test­ed the par­ty’s lead­er­ship in 2010, de­feat­ing found­ing leader Bas­deo Pan­day in what she de­scribed as a “rev­o­lu­tion­ary mo­ment.”

Since then, she has nev­er lost an in­ter­nal lead­er­ship con­test—de­feat­ing Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Vas­ant Bharath in 2015, and Bharath again in 2020. De­spite los­ing gen­er­al elec­tions in 2015 and 2020, she re­tained the sup­port of the par­ty’s base and has now se­cured a re­newed man­date fol­low­ing the UNC’s re­turn to pow­er in April.

“From the mo­ment you en­trust­ed me with lead­er­ship, I vowed that in­ter­nal, lo­cal and na­tion­al elec­tions will al­ways be called when they are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due. I have kept that word to you and to the peo­ple of our land. And as al­ways, I treat an in­ter­nal elec­tion as a con­test of pur­pose, not of per­son­al­i­ties.”

She cred­it­ed her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s past achieve­ments in gov­ern­ment and pledged to gov­ern with bold, com­pas­sion­ate lead­er­ship dur­ing the par­ty’s new term in of­fice.

“We won gov­ern­ment. As you know, we in­her­it­ed the dire so­cioe­co­nom­ic mess, hard times for our cit­i­zens, es­ca­lat­ed crime wave, or­gan­ised crime net­works, and a stunt­ed econ­o­my.”

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion, now gov­ern­ing with a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, must dis­play dis­ci­plined lead­er­ship, prin­ci­pled pol­i­cy, cred­i­ble plan to res­cue and re­build our beloved land.”

Speak­ing di­rect­ly to those call­ing for her to step aside, Per­sad-Bisses­sar sig­nalled that suc­ces­sion plan­ning was in place, but her lead­er­ship would con­tin­ue for now.

“To those who ask, af­ter 15 years, is it time to move on? Well, the elec­torate an­swered three months ago. It is time to move for­ward to­geth­er.”

“I of­fer you con­ti­nu­ity of pur­pose, with re­new­al as a method—new faces el­e­vat­ed, new struc­tures em­pow­ered, new ideas in­cu­bat­ed and to­tal­ly com­mit­ted to vic­to­ry un­der tried and test­ed lead­er­ship. I pledge you deep­er in­ter­nal democ­ra­cy, wider can­di­da­cies and de­lib­er­ate men­tor­ship. So, the ba­ton is not placed. The ba­ton is not dropped. This is my con­tract with you. The ba­ton will be passed when that time comes, but it’s not to­day.”

Get­ting emo­tion­al, she of­fered a mes­sage of grat­i­tude and en­dur­ing com­mit­ment to the UNC faith­ful: “Half of my heart be­longs to you and the oth­er half I gift to you again… You have had lead­ers be­fore me. You will have lead­ers af­ter me. But you will nev­er, ever have a leader who loves you as much as I do.”

Call­ing on the par­ty and its sup­port­ers to re­main uni­fied and pur­pose-dri­ven, she added: “Let us al­ways bring light where there is dark­ness. And let us com­mit to­geth­er to re­build and re­store Trinidad and To­ba­go. That is the man­date you have giv­en the UNC. And we will ho­n­our that man­date.”