Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be sworn in as T&T’s ninth Prime Min­is­ter at 4 pm to­day at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s.

This was an­nounced by the UNC yes­ter­day af­ter the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion vic­to­ry on Mon­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s UNC won 26 of the 41 con­stituen­cies and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty gained two seats while the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment held on­to 13 seats.

Al­so to be sworn in to­day af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. UNC front­lines have con­firmed the AG will be a man but did not give any oth­er de­tails.

There has been spec­u­la­tion on whether this may be Aranguez/St Joseph MP-elect De­vesh Ma­haraj or some­one from out­side the can­di­dates’ line­up, in­clud­ing for­mer PNM AG John Je­re­mie, now with the UNC.

Par­ty sources had re­cent­ly cit­ed at­tor­ney Dar­rell Al­la­har—who’s led sev­er­al is­sues for UNC up to re­cent­ly—but there was no con­fir­ma­tion there.

The names of for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh (who have both ap­peared on UNC plat­forms) have al­so been thrown in the mix.

Meet­ings were re­port­ed­ly on­go­ing yes­ter­day to fi­nalise the arrange­ments. The rest of the Cab­i­net is ex­pect­ed to be sworn in lat­er on. There have been hints —but no con­fir­ma­tion—of a swear­ing-in for Cab­i­net mem­bers at a pub­lic venue oth­er than the Pres­i­dent’s House.

To­day’s swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny comes a day af­ter the UNC’s 36th an­niver­sary yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­came T&T’s first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter af­ter win­ning the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Con­tin­u­ing spec­u­la­tion on ap­point­ments with­in cer­tain UNC cir­cles yes­ter­day in­clud­ed the fol­low­ing from among win­ning can­di­dates: Jear­lean John (Fi­nance or Min­is­ter in the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter), Dr Aiy­na Ali (Min­is­ter in Fi­nance), Dr Roodal Mooni­lal (Hous­ing), Wayne Sturge or Sad­dam Ho­sein (Le­gal Af­fairs), Michael Dowlath (Ed­u­ca­tion), Neil Go­sine (For­eign Af­fairs), Khadi­jah Ameen (So­cial De­vel­op­ment), Bar­ry Padarath (Trade and In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs), Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe (Health), Dr Rishad Seecher­an (Min­is­ter in Health), Dave Tan­coo (Works), Roger Alexan­der and David Lee (Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty), Michelle Ben­jamin (Youth De­vel­op­ment), Narindra Roop­nar­ine (Gen­der and Child Af­fairs), Shiv­ana Sam (Rur­al De­vel­op­ment) Clyde El­der and Ernesto Ke­sar (Labour).

There has been some ear­ly de­bate in the par­ty, but no fur­ther word, about of­fer­ing the TPP Tourism port­fo­lios af­ter the Far­ley Au­gus­tine-led par­ty won the To­ba­go East and West seats.

There has been no word on what role, if any, UNC front­lin­er Jack Warn­er—who walked the East/West cor­ri­dor ar­eas dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign—will play. Warn­er had spear­head­ed the cam­paign of Arou­ca/ Lopinot can­di­date Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj. She lost to PNM’s Mar­vin Gon­za­les. The UNC sought a re­count which be­gan Tues­day af­ter­noon.

Just be­fore last Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal UNC ral­ly, par­ty sources had said that sev­er­al peo­ple, buoyed by the high num­bers at­tend­ing UNC’s cam­paign meet­ings, had been com­ing for­ward to of­fer their as­sis­tance to the par­ty.

“There is no short­age of tal­ent com­ing on board,” sources said then.