Gail Alexan­der

De­spite Op­po­si­tion con­cerns on the choice of Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for the post of Pres­i­dent of T&T, the news has been wel­comed in some quar­ters. Kan­ga­loo didn't an­swer calls or texted query yes­ter­day on her view of Gov­ern­ment's an­nounce­ment.

But sources close to her said she is "pre­pared to do her best for coun­try and peo­ple and has nev­er backed down from re­spon­si­bil­i­ties."

Yes­ter­day, Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said, "It's good that a per­son orig­i­nal­ly from the South has been cho­sen and hav­ing an­oth­er fe­male (for Pres­i­dent) is a pos­i­tive sign for bal­ance.

"We ex­pect - once the for­mal­i­ties are car­ried out- Pres­i­dent-des­ig­nate Kan­ga­loo will be more vo­cal in her ex­pres­sions on the na­tion­al in­ter­est on is­sues af­fect­ing T&T, in­clud­ing crime be­ing top of the list. With her ex­po­sure to the po­lit­i­cal and le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty al­so, she should be able to lend some fair dis­cus­sion to the na­tion­al land­scape."

For­mer PNM Min­is­ter Mustapha Ab­dul Hamid, who served with Kan­ga­loo while both were in the Patrick Man­ning PNM gov­ern­ment, told TG, "I'm very hap­py for her. I think she's em­i­nent­ly qual­i­fied. She's an ex­treme­ly in­tel­li­gent la­dy and is a very in­de­pen­dent thinker.

"She is well bal­anced and lev­el-head­ed and has served T&T well in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties and I ex­pect her to do an ex­cel­lent job - T&T will be proud of her."

For­mer pub­lic ser­vice head (To­ba­go Coun­cil of El­ders) Regi­nald Du­mas said, "I have noth­ing against her but I'd have liked to see a Hin­du pres­i­dent - and if she is one, fine - and I'd have pre­ferred some­one with­out par­ty po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion. If she fits that bill, I have no prob­lems."

For­mer UNC MP and Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan did not agree with the se­lec­tion, say­ing it "is a rot­ten choice which is to­tal nepo­tism and which is what T&T will con­tin­ue get­ting if there's no con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form."

A South­ern woman of "firsts"

Gov­ern­ment's an­nounce­ment crowns Kan­ga­loo's par­tic­i­pa­tion in pub­lic ser­vice and life, which be­gan in 2001 as a PNM Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in the Patrick Man­ning PNM gov­ern­ment. Her ca­reer in­cludes a num­ber of "firsts."

Ac­cord­ing to records, Kan­ga­loo, "is the on­ly per­son to serve as both Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate of Trinidad and To­ba­go - at dif­fer­ent in­ter­vals -, the first woman to serve as Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent and third woman to serve as act­ing Pres­i­dent of T&T and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent.

Kan­ga­loo is a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and Hugh Wood­ing Law School with a de­gree in law.

Kan­ga­loo comes from a well-known San Fer­nan­do fam­i­ly. PNM of­fi­cials said her fa­ther Car­lyle Kan­ga­loo was an at­tor­ney and was first a deputy San Fer­nan­do May­or and then May­or over 1970-73. Her broth­er, the late Jus­tice Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo, died fol­low­ing a car ac­ci­dent in 2012.

Kan­ga­loo, who is mar­ried to at­tor­ney Ker­wyn Gar­cia, lives at Cas­cade. She has no chil­dren but is god­moth­er to two girls, of­fi­cials said. The cou­ple reg­u­lar­ly walks around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah.

Pub­lic Life...

On Jan­u­ary 12, 2001, Kan­ga­loo first be­came a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment as a PNM Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor in the team of then-PNM leader Patrick Man­ning (now de­ceased). She served in that ca­pac­i­ty un­til Oc­to­ber 2001.

In 2002, when the PNM won gen­er­al elec­tion, Kan­ga­loo then served as Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate from April 2002 to Au­gust 2002.

She was sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (So­cial Ser­vice De­liv­ery) when the Man­ning PNM again won gen­er­al elec­tions in 2002. She served in that post un­til May 200 .

Kan­ga­loo was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs from May 2005 un­til No­vem­ber 200 . In the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, Kan­ga­loo was elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as the PNM's can­di­date for Pointe-a-Pierre.

She served as the Min­is­ter of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion in an­oth­er Man­ning PNM gov­ern­ment un­til May 2010, when Man­ning called elec­tions. The PNM lost.

When the Dr Kei­th Row­ley PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion won gen­er­al elec­tions in 2015, Kan­ga­loo was elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and has served in that ca­pac­i­ty since then.

In her Sen­ate tenure, Kan­ga­loo has held the cham­ber firm­ly to or­der and on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, clashed with Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors, in­clud­ing UNC Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts, whom she "evict­ed" from the Sen­ate in Feb­ru­ary 2022. On that oc­ca­sion, she said it amazed her that she was "speak­ing to adults and by now every­body should be versed in the Stand­ing Or­ders" and it al­so amazed her that she was faced with the in­dis­ci­pline that she had just faced from Roberts.