Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Amid sev­er­al ques­tions about her po­lit­i­cal fu­ture, Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing has re­signed from her po­si­tion as a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing, 43, stepped down on Wednes­day af­ter news emerged this week that her hus­band filed for an in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der against her on Sep­tem­ber 11. It was grant­ed by the Fam­i­ly Court on Sep­tem­ber 19.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced the res­ig­na­tion with a post on its Face­book page.

“On Wednes­day Sep­tem­ber 25th, 2024, con­se­quent up­on the res­ig­na­tion of Sen­a­tor Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, the Pres­i­dent, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo ORTT, on the ad­vice of Prime Min­is­ter Dr The Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley, ap­point­ed Mr An­cil Den­nis as a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Leza­ma-Lee Sing were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day. In a pre­ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to a so­cial me­dia blog­ger, she de­fend­ed her char­ac­ter say­ing, she was “not ca­pa­ble of such hor­ren­dous acts” and said she was wait­ing for her day in court. The mat­ter comes up for hear­ing again in the Fam­i­ly Court on No­vem­ber 28.

The in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der was grant­ed with­out Leza­ma-Lee Sing or her at­tor­neys be­ing present.

The for­mer sen­a­tor is al­so the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer, but no high-rank­ing mem­ber of the PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive from the Prime Min­is­ter/Po­lit­i­cal Leader to the par­ty chair­man re­spond­ed to nu­mer­ous calls and mes­sages on whether she will con­tin­ue in that ca­pac­i­ty.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing al­so of­ten acts as the mas­ter of cer­e­monies for PNM pub­lic gath­er­ings.

But the now for­mer sen­a­tor has found an un­like­ly al­ly in the Op­po­si­tion Leader who is plead­ing with the pub­lic to leave her alone.

This call for grace is al­so be­ing echoed by po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts who firm­ly be­lieve that her do­mes­tic is­sues should have no im­pact on her pro­fes­sion­al po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia that she pass­es no judg­ment on Leza­ma-Lee Sing and urged peo­ple to “stop wash­ing their mouth on her.”

She stat­ed, “Heap­ing ridicule on her and her sit­u­a­tion is not nec­es­sary. Let her have some qui­et peace and hope­ful­ly time and ef­fort will heal open wounds, and she can re­pair any dam­age. I wish her and her fam­i­ly the best and hope things work out.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so sought to un­der­score, “Re­gard­ing the or­der against her, she will have her chance in court to clear her name.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Leza­ma Lee-Sing is a young woman and there will al­ways be prob­lems but hoped that things would im­prove in the fu­ture. She be­lieves the most im­por­tant thing for both Leza­ma Lee-Sing and her hus­band would be the well-be­ing of their chil­dren.

The ap­peal for sym­pa­thy is al­so com­ing from po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts, who be­lieve the con­tro­ver­sy would have very lit­tle im­pact on her po­lit­i­cal fu­ture.

“There are peo­ple whose po­lit­i­cal ca­reers should have been over for far worse is­sues than this but yet they sur­vived. This too shall pass,” said Dr Shane Mo­hammed.

Mo­hammed added it was a pri­vate mat­ter and should have re­mained so.

“If peo­ple are in the pub­lic do­main for 90 per cent of their lives, they are en­ti­tled to at least 10 per cent pri­va­cy. No­body in the pub­lic do­main, no aca­d­e­m­ic, no politi­cian, no me­dia per­son­al­i­ty should be talk­ing about Leza­ma’s per­son­al life and what is hap­pen­ing. This is a pri­vate mat­ter that is in­con­se­quen­tial to Mrs Leza­ma’s per­for­mance as a de­bater and par­lia­men­tar­i­an.”

Mo­hammed spec­u­lat­ed that Leza­ma Lee-Sing of­fered her res­ig­na­tion hop­ing that she would be left alone as a pri­vate cit­i­zen.

He be­lieves the PNM act­ed pre­ma­ture­ly in the mat­ter and may have pan­icked to en­sure it does not hang over their heads in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the is­sue does not mark the end for Leza­ma-Lee Sing.

“I don’t think her ca­reer is over. She’s go­ing to re­main with the PNM and chances are she may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be a min­is­ter or sen­a­tor but she will re­main with them and con­tin­ue work,” he said.

Re­gard­ing any neg­a­tive fall­out for the PNM: “I don’t think at this time there are any im­pli­ca­tions for the PNM. They’ll sim­ply move on do what they have to and she will as well,” Ra­goonath added.

An­oth­er an­a­lyst, Derek Ram­samooj, ex­pressed deep dis­ap­point­ment that Leza­ma-Lee Sing’s per­son­al busi­ness had been dragged in­to the pub­lic do­main.

“This type of be­hav­iour be­ing dis­cussed in the pub­lic space re­flects a pover­ty of think­ing not on­ly from our cit­i­zens but our in­sti­tu­tions, such as the me­dia. We should nev­er use per­son­al cir­cum­stances to dis­cuss the so­ci­etal im­pro­pri­ety of what can be termed good be­hav­iour,” he lament­ed.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing has been re­placed in the Up­per House of Par­lia­ment by An­cil Den­nis, which Mo­hammed spec­u­lat­ed gave the PNM the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to score po­lit­i­cal favour in To­ba­go.

“They are des­per­ate for To­ba­go, and they would take up any­thing that would help them to at least gath­er five votes, but I could tell you that the peo­ple of To­ba­go have al­ready re­ject­ed An­cil Den­nis. An­cil Den­nis is not even some­one I would con­sid­er a high cal­iber To­bag­on­ian with re­spect to his per­for­mance in pol­i­tics,” he pos­tu­lat­ed.

Rise through the ranks of PNM

Leza­ma-Lee-Sing was high­ly re­gard­ed in the PNM hav­ing risen through its ranks to the Par­lia­ment.

She has been in­volved with the PNM since her youth and held var­i­ous ex­ec­u­tive posts, such as youth of­fi­cer, youth league chair­man and PRO.

She be­came the youngest sen­a­tor in the 9th Par­lia­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, af­ter the tri­umph of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in the 2007 Gen­er­al elec­tions.

She was de­feat­ed in her 2010 elec­tion bid for the Ari­ma seat but was ap­point­ed Ari­ma Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man in 2013.

Leza­ma Lee-Sing would again serve as a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor in the 12th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment in 2020.

She served in the Par­lia­ment from De­cem­ber 17, 2007, to April 8, 2010. And again, from Au­gust 28, 2020, up to her res­ig­na­tion on Wednes­day.