Gail Alexan­der

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is em­i­nent­ly qual­i­fied for the po­si­tion of Pres­i­dent, in­clud­ing with po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence that gives her the grav­i­tas and strength to act with con­fi­dence in the post.

This was the view of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day in an­nounc­ing Kan­ga­loo as Gov­ern­ment’s nom­i­nee for the post of Pres­i­dent—a choice with which the Op­po­si­tion UNC dis­agrees.

De­fend­ing the se­lec­tion against con­cerns of Kan­ga­loo be­ing an ac­tive politi­cian, Row­ley said Gov­ern­ment had giv­en the Op­po­si­tion the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sup­ply five sig­na­tures on the 12-slot nom­i­na­tion form for a can­di­date on Mon­day. But if that wasn’t avail­able, Gov­ern­ment will have no choice but to fill out all 12 slots.

The out­come fol­lowed yes­ter­day’s meet­ing be­tween Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to dis­cuss the is­sue of a per­son to serve as Pres­i­dent. The meet­ing was held at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Port-of- Spain.

It brought to a head the De­cem­ber an­nounce­ment that the Elec­toral Col­lege—com­pris­ing both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment—meets on Jan­u­ary 20 to elect a Pres­i­dent.

Nom­i­na­tions for a can­di­date must be sub­mit­ted by Mon­day.

The term of in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes ends March 2.

Pres­i­dent Weekes is cur­rent­ly on va­ca­tion and is due back next Thurs­day. Kan­ga­loo is act­ing as Pres­i­dent.

Min­is­ters Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (Hous­ing) and Stu­art Young (En­er­gy/Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter) ac­com­pa­nied the Prime Min­is­ter to yes­ter­day’s meet­ing.

UNC whip David Lee and Sen­ate leader Wade Mark ac­com­pa­nied Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Af­ter the meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said she was very dis­ap­point­ed, said she’d shared her con­cern with Row­ley on the nom­i­nee and that T&T should not have an ac­tive politi­cian hold­ing the post. The UNC lat­er held a me­dia brief­ing to de­tail its ob­jec­tions and ac­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Row­ley told re­porters Pres­i­dent Weekes, whose five-year term ends March 20, will not be of­fer­ing her­self for a sec­ond term, as she had giv­en this un­der­stand­ing at the start of her term.

On the va­can­cy for Pres­i­dent, he said the first step was to find a qual­i­fied per­son will­ing to ac­cept mak­ing them­selves avail­able to be nom­i­nat­ed. Nom­i­na­tion is by Jan­u­ary 10, fol­lowed by the Jan­u­ary 20 elec­tion.

The nom­i­na­tion form re­quires sig­na­tures from 12 House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives MPs.

Row­ley said a few days ago, he in­vit­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar to meet pri­or to the sign­ing of the form. He said as head of the Cab­i­net, he had been qui­et­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Cab­i­net mem­bers and mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty “to see what we should do and who Gov­ern­ment should ad­vance as a nom­i­nee.”

He said he al­so had the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness talk to the Op­po­si­tion whip on if the Op­po­si­tion had a nom­i­nee. But he said that did not turn up a name.

Row­ley said yes­ter­day’s meet­ing with the Op­po­si­tion was very cor­dial.

“We both agreed among our­selves that it would be best if we’re able to have con­sen­sus but we’re not un­mind­ful it’s pos­si­ble we may not have con­sen­sus.”

He said the Op­po­si­tion said they didn’t have a name to ad­vance as they did not treat with in­di­vid­u­als, but with main­ly re­quire­ments. He said Gov­ern­ment told the Op­po­si­tion it had done some con­sult­ing in and out of the Gov­ern­ment and had a name.

“We’re sat­is­fied that name is some­one who fits the bill, qual­i­fied and can do the job and the name we ad­vanced is the per­son who is now the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent—Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo,” the PM said.

On Kan­ga­loo’s re­ac­tion to the se­lec­tion, Row­ley lat­er told re­porters she was told of the con­sid­er­a­tion and, “She was per­suad­ed to con­tin­ue in pub­lic life.”

He said he’d in­di­cat­ed to the Op­po­si­tion that Gov­ern­ment, hav­ing noth­ing else to con­sid­er from the Op­po­si­tion, “and hav­ing done our con­sid­er­a­tions, hav­ing dead­lines to meet and re­quire­ments of the Con­sti­tu­tion, that we will be sup­port­ing Sen­a­tor Kan­ga­loo.”

Row­ley said the Op­po­si­tion in­di­cat­ed they would need “a lit­tle time to con­sid­er it.”

He added, “There are 12 slots on the form which must be filled by Mon­day morn­ing and we on the Gov­ern­ment side can fill in some now—all 12 if we wish—but we gave the Op­po­si­tion the un­der­tak­ing we’d fill in sev­en and then we’ll wait on the Op­po­si­tion if—af­ter con­sid­er­a­tion—they de­cid­ed.

“Even if they have reser­va­tions, if they de­cid­ed they’d sup­port the nom­i­nee by sign­ing the form we’ll give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty, as we’re bet­ter off if we can go to the Par­lia­ment with some sem­blance of con­sen­sus.”

He added, “If on the oth­er hand that’s not to be had, Gov­ern­ment will have no choice but to fill out all 12 slots”

Row­ley said Gov­ern­ment would re­al­ly be hap­py and the coun­try would be bet­ter off if a qual­i­fied per­son such as Kan­ga­loo is “our nom­i­nee go­ing for­ward.”

He said it would al­so be good if Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans can agree that be­ing a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment doesn’t “dis­qual­i­fy you or any­body from hold­ing the of­fice, as the Con­sti­tu­tion doesn’t say that.”

For those who felt Kan­ga­loo was not qual­i­fied, Row­ley said the Con­sti­tu­tion says that when the Pres­i­dent was not avail­able, the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent act­ed.

“Un­der­stand that those who wrote the Con­sti­tu­tion said if you can prop­er­ly dis­charge your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, then you should be able to dis­charge it as Pres­i­dent.”

She’s very qual­i­fied,

po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence helps

PM Row­ley said Kan­ga­loo has long ser­vice as a pub­lic of­fi­cer. He said he’d told the Op­po­si­tion he wasn’t one of those who felt that be­cause some­one made them­selves avail­able for pub­lic ser­vice, it dis­qual­i­fied them from fur­ther pub­lic ser­vice.

Nor did he feel that if some­one served in Par­lia­ment, they were dis­qual­i­fied al­so. Row­ley al­so did not sup­port the view that if some­one did not serve in the pub­lic are­na, that they were more in­de­pen­dent and bet­ter qual­i­fied to serve.

On op­po­si­tion to the choice, Row­ley con­firmed Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ex­pressed con­cern on im­par­tial­i­ty. But he said the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment as an in­sti­tu­tion “didn’t sub­scribe to the view that if you had been as­so­ci­at­ed with it, you are dis­qual­i­fied.”

“We are very proud of our par­ty, of the decades of ser­vice to this coun­try. In­di­vid­u­als who have served us and T&T in good stead far out­strip the one or two per­sons who may have fall­en short in any way and we ex­pect that a per­son en­ter­ing of­fice at any lev­el be­ing iden­ti­fied as hav­ing be­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with the PNM rep­re­sents the best of T&T, he said.”

“Sen­a­tor Kan­ga­loo did serve with the PNM. She was ap­point­ed at very many lev­els, very many more than most cit­i­zens in T&T...”

He not­ed her ser­vice, in­clud­ing as a Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, a min­is­ter and for the last sev­en years as Sen­ate Pres­i­dent and that she had act­ed as Pres­i­dent in that pe­ri­od al­so.

“How many oth­ers of any ilk can claim that? And in that sev­en years, we’re sat­is­fied she served and is not dis­qual­i­fied in any way by her con­duct or oth­er­wise... we’re for­tu­nate as a na­tion we can smooth­ly move—some may even call it suc­ces­sion plan­ning—from Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, act­ing for sev­en years and then be­ing asked to serve as Pres­i­dent where she’d act­ed.”

Row­ley be­lieved that be­ing a for­mer Min­is­ter was a part of Kan­ga­loo’s ex­pe­ri­ence. He not­ed she’s a lawyer, had served both in Op­po­si­tion and Gov­ern­ment and was once Pointe-a-Pierre MP.

“What ex­cel­lent qual­i­fi­ca­tions...and of course what is re­quired by the Pres­i­den­cy is a char­ac­ter to go with the let­ter and spir­it of the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion and Sen­a­tor Kan­ga­loo has demon­strat­ed that she has that.”

De­fend­ing Kan­ga­loo against the per­cep­tion of be­ing an ac­tive politi­cian, he said she had nev­er been in Cab­i­net with Gov­ern­ment and wasn’t in­volved in par­ty busi­ness for more than ten years.

“When she was asked to serve in the Sen­ate, she had to be per­suad­ed to come out of re­tire­ment—I per­suad­ed her to come out,” he said.

“Al­so, I don’t dis­qual­i­fy peo­ple on the ba­sis that they are ac­tive politi­cians. I think her po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence gives her the grav­i­tas... strength to act with con­fi­dence in that of­fice where I dare say she’s act­ed for sev­en years.”

He said when late PM Dr Er­ic Williams en­tered the Prime Min­is­ter­ship in 1956, he’d nev­er served in Par­lia­ment.

“This la­dy has had sev­en years of act­ing in the po­si­tion.”

He said Kan­ga­loo nev­er had a scan­dal or to apol­o­gise for mis­lead­ing the Par­lia­ment or ex­plain her qual­i­fi­ca­tions as be­ing fraud­u­lent.

“She’s had very straight­for­ward ser­vice path­way to this se­lec­tion ...”

On whether the pub­lic will view her as im­par­tial giv­en her long as­so­ci­a­tion with the PNM, Row­ley said what­ev­er comes her way, he was con­fi­dent she can han­dle it.

On her be­ing Pres­i­dent at the time of the dis­missal of for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jawala Ram­baran, Row­ley said that was a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion and ex­e­cu­tion of the Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion had to be done by who­ev­er was at Pres­i­dent’s House.

“So that’s not a blot on her,” he not­ed.

He said it was not a gen­der is­sue ei­ther but one on it be­ing the “best per­son for the job at this time” and Kan­ga­loo was high­ly qual­i­fied to do it.

New Sen­ate Pres­i­dent need­ed

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said yes­ter­day that Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo will have some time to va­cate the seat of Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, as she can­not hold two posts.

The Gov­ern­ment will then have to ap­point a sen­a­tor to fill the va­can­cy there.

“In com­ing days, we’ll deal with those,” Row­ley said.

He said Gov­ern­ment will be guid­ed on when a va­can­cy in the Sen­ate aris­es. He said one per­son goes out of of­fice on Jan­u­ary 20 and the suc­ces­sor en­ters of­fice on the 21st. He al­so said cur­rent Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes re­mains in of­fice un­til the day be­fore the new one en­ters.

But Kan­ga­loo won’t par­tic­i­pate in the Elec­toral Col­lege pro­ceed­ings.

Row­ley said he wouldn’t en­ter the con­ver­sa­tion at this time on ways to change the elec­tion of a pres­i­dent, though there was need to ex­am­ine the Con­sti­tu­tion on it.

“But not now... he said.”

Row­ley al­so said, “I want to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty once again to thank Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes for agree­ing to come out of re­tire­ment and serv­ing as Pres­i­dent of T&T and we wish her well as she goes for­ward to con­tin­ue her re­tire­ment and we wish her good health, hap­pi­ness and we are proud that on her CV, she can put with­out re­but­tal she has been Pres­i­dent of T&T who served her peo­ple well.”