Siparia’s history-making MP

KAMLA PERSAD-BISSESSAR, who has taken on the herculean task of leading the divided United National Congress (UNC) in Parliament, is making history for the second time in her political career. The first time was in November 1995 when she was sworn in as this country’s first female Attorney General.

This time around, even as she makes history as the first woman in this country to serve as Leader of the Opposition, the Siparia MP faces the challenge of heading a deeply divided Opposition, with two factions fighting for control of the party. From the moment she stepped into the position recently vacated by UNC founder and former political leader Basdeo Panday, Persad-Bissessar found herself on one side of a bitter leadership battle, pitted against political leader Winston Dookeran.

Although she has the support of eight of the 15 Opposition MPs in the Lower House, Persad-Bissessar leads a party whose backbench is now heavily populated by former colleagues who are now her rivals. In addition to Dookeran, she is on the opposite side of the fence to the party’s former Chief Whip Ganga Singh, as well as UNC Independents Gerald Yetming (St Joseph), Gillian Lucky (Pointe-a-Pierre) and Fuad Khan (San Juan/Barataria).

It is shaping up to be a bruising battle. For a while it seemed like the Siparia MP had scored major points over Dookeran when he agreed with her choice for Chief Whip, Caroni Central MP Hamza Rafeeq. However, it quickly emerged that Dookeran laid out conditions for his acceptance of Rafeeq — the reinstatement of Robin Montano as an Opposition Senator.

Montano had been fired by Panday and Tim Gopeesingh had replaced him in the Upper House.

Whether Persad-Bissessar will give in to Dookeran’s request remains to be seen.

However, in Parliament on Friday she was relishing her role as Opposition Leader, apparently unfazed by the rift within the party which, in the view of some political pundits, signals the imminent demise of the UNC.

However, Persad-Bissessar is no stranger to political battles. She has been involved in quite a few in the 19 years she has been involved in TT politics.

An attorney at law by profession, the 54-year-old Siparia MP was born on April 4, 1952, in the district she now represents in Parliament.

She was a teacher and social worker before entering the Hugh Wooding Law School in 1985. Two years later, she graduated at the top of her class and immediately embarked on the profession that would serve as a stepping stone into politics.

Ironically, she got her start in the chambers of Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, a man with whom she has had an “on and off” political relationship since then. Within months of making her history-making debut as the country’s first female AG, Persad-Bissessar had to step aside for Maharaj to take over the position, leaving her in the less impressive position of Legal Affairs Minister.

They became political rivals in 2001 as contenders, along with then Works Minister Carlos John, for the position of UNC deputy political leader. Until then, it appeared that Maharaj was Panday’s heir apparent. However, in May of that year, after returning from a medical check-up in London, Panday opened up the field when he announced that MPs and ministers would be allowed to vie for positions in the UNC’s upcoming executive election.

In another surprise move, Panday endorsed John for the position, stating that the UNC needed to demonstrate that it was a party of inclusion.

The campaign that followed was the first hint that all was not well within the then ruling party. Maharaj won the race but was almost immediately sidelined by Panday, who refused to appoint him to act as prime minister during his absence from the country. Instead, he appointed Persad-Bissessar to the position.

The two had a showdown of sorts during a UNC Women’s Congress at the Rienzi Congress. Maharaj arrived at the meeting with a noisy contingent of tassa drummers and supporters, disrupting a speech that Persad-Bissessar was delivering at the time.

Later, in his salutation, he addressed her, not as acting prime minister, but as “the minister appointed to carry out the duties of prime minister during the absence from the country of the honourable Prime Minister Basdeo Panday.”

He further commented: “Although women are entitled to equality and must demand it, women must not be satisfied with equality based on tokenism. You must not be satisfied to achieve positions and get equal treatment merely because you are women. Any positions you get must be on the basis of equal treatment and not on tokenism or cosmetics.”

During Maharaj’s address, several women from Persad-Bissessar’s constituency walked out, complaining that she had been insulted.

It was one of the few occasions when the ever-smiling Persad-Bissessar became serious.

When Maharaj was sacked from Panday’s Cabinet, it was Persad-Bissessar who replaced him as AG.

In recent months, the two seem to be on the same side. Maharaj’s re-emergence as a force within the UNC was orchestrated by Panday a few months ago at a public rally in Chaguanas. He has now returned as a frontline speaker at the party’s public meetings.

Whether he and Persad-Bissessar have indeed buried their differences and will be able to co-exist within the party remains to be seen.

However, the odds seem to be against a full reconciliation between the two who share the one thing in common that will get in the way — their desire to be the UNC’s next political leader.

While in recent times Maharaj has been playing his cards close to his chest, Persad-Bissessar has kept her leadership ambitions secret. While she always maintained that she would never challenge Panday for that position, she has always been open about her desire to succeed him at the helm of the UNC.

In an October 2002 newspaper interview, when speculation was rife that Panday would retire from politics, the Siparia MP made it clear that she was interested in the position. “In the fullness of time that possibility is there, all in the hands of the Lord,” she said.

Persad-Bissessar, who once expressed the belief that “if there is something you are to get, you will get it,” could not resist expressing her ambitions to jump to another level of political success when, during Friday’s sitting of the House, she declared that she was warming the Opposition Leader’s seat for Patrick Manning — an expression of her desire to become TT’s first female prime minister.

While the Siparia MP has had her fair share of political success, she has had her challenging moments in the arena and has attracted considerable criticism over the years.

She became embroiled in a controversy that went on for several weeks during the 2000 election campaign when, responding to political banter from Ganga Singh about “dropping pipe” in her Siparia constituency, she responded in a way that many criticised as being inappropriate and in bad taste.

The controversy did not hinder her chances at the polls, however, since she won the seat, as she has done consistently over the years, by a landslide.

In recent times, it was Persad-Bissessar who unveiled the serious corruption allegations that led to criminal charges being laid against two members of the Patrick Manning Administration. The two, former Works Minister Franklin Khan and former Energy Minister Eric Williams, have since resigned from the Cabinet and their matters are pending in court.

While it was as a UNC MP that she rose to political prominence, Persad-Bissessar has not always been aligned to that party. In fact, her earliest political involvements were on the Organisation for National Reconstruction (ONR) and then the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR).

She entered politics in 1987 as an NAR alderman in the St Patrick County Council and served as secretary and vice-chairperson of the National Organisation for Women. By 1994 she had switched political allegiance and was appointed a UNC Opposition Senator.

Persad-Bissessar, who was been the MP for Siparia since 1995, is a mother of one son and grandmother of one. She is married to Dr Gregory Bissessar, a medical doctor.