[Reader-list] Trinidad's PM breaks the cultural mould

Pawan Durani pawan.durani at gmail.com
Fri Jun 25 15:33:11 IST 2010


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10341771.stm

Barely 24 hours after she was sworn in as the first woman prime
minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Persad-Bissessar donned a life jacket
and waded into the flood waters to tour areas affected by torrential
rains sweeping across the Caribbean.

A devout Hindu, she swore on the Bhagavad Gita - the Hindu holy book -
to do her duty to her people.

Even as congratulations poured in from around the world, she remained
focused on "dealing with the people's business".

It was the most important task at hand, she told her 1.3m citizens
during the live televised address of her historic swearing-in
ceremony.

A descendant of Indian indentured labourers who came to Trinidad to
work the sugar plantations from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar between 1845
and 1917, Ms Persad-Bissessar grew up with traditional Indian values
and strong religious ties.

'No novice'
The landslide victory of the coalition led by her United National
Congress (UNC) party in last month's election has brought a sense of
euphoria and feeling of hope to this incredibly wealthy republic.

Trinidad and Tobago has sailed smoothly through the global recession,
cushioned by a sea of oil and natural gas.

Ms Persad-Bissessar ran a high-profile election campaign
The squandering of billions of dollars by the former government and
alleged corruption helped bring this 58-year-old grandmother-of-two
into power.

She unseated former PM Patrick Manning whose People's National
Movement (PNM) party had governed the country for 42 of the 48 years
since its independence from England.

An attorney by profession, Ms Persad-Bissessar is no novice to
politics having been the MP for her area Siparia, a rural town in the
south of the island, since 1995.

In the last 15 years she has weathered many political storms, even as
she broke gender barriers.

Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday (1995-2001) appointed her attorney
general and education minister during the UNC's first stint in office,
and she even acted as PM.

But in 2007, in the lead-up to a general election, when it was clear
that she was the best person to lead the party, Mr Panday refused to
resign.

Ms Persad-Bissessar, who is married to a doctor and has a son,
swallowed the humiliation, even giving a famous speech to the theme of
Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry, in which she declared her undying
support for her political guru.

But all that changed last December.

As then Prime Minister Manning became increasingly unpopular, Ms
Persad-Bissessar saw a golden opportunity for the opposition forces to
unite to topple the ruling People's National Movement.

'Smear campaign'
But as she launched her bid to take over the UNC, Mr Panday unleashed
an attack on her reputation, suggesting that she was an alcoholic.

Ms Persad-Bissessar called the accusation "total falsehood".

Ms Persad-Bissessar is of Indian origin
"It is a smear campaign of lies, half-truths and innuendoes. Smear
campaigns do not win elections. Sticks and stones may break my bones
but words cannot hurt me."

Indeed, they did not.

On 24 January, Ms Persad-Bissessar became leader of the UNC with a
landslide victory.

When Mr Panday refused to step down as leader of the opposition, she
dealt with that too - persuading his loyal MPs to cross over to her
side.

After she was appointed leader of the opposition, she hired the
strategist who worked on Barack Obama's presidential campaign to
assist her.

After a blistering, hugely expensive campaign that used high-tech,
slick advertisement in all the media, including the internet, Ms
Persad-Bissessar and her coalition emerged victorious.

And on 24 May she became prime minister.

Ms Persad-Bissessar has shown admirable political savvy in the last
few weeks, openly courting the media and reacting swiftly to public
opinion.

In her 30 May Indian Arrival Day speech she touched on "soft" issues
such as race, gender and class inequality.

"As a child in the rural district of Penal I remember sharing meals
from the same pot with neighbours of different racial, ethnic, social
and economic backgrounds," she said.

"We all managed. If one had, then all had. Because then we were
intuitively and instinctively our brother's keepers.

On her terms
"Time and circumstances have allowed many factors, including the
divisiveness of some politicians, to keep us apart. But to go forward,
we must go back.

"We need to rekindle those values, those strengths as a nation and as
a peopleā€¦ And we must do so as one people with one goal."

Ms Persad-Bissessar unseated former PM Patrick Manning
She is intensely aware of the chance she has to make and change
history on these islands.

She has already shown that she will be a prime minister on her own terms.

She declined the opportunity to meet US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton because parliament had not yet been convened.

She graced the catwalk at Trinidad and Tobago's annual fashion week at
the end of May.

And she also made an appearance with local chutney musicians at a show.

Ms Persad-Bissessar, who graduated top of her class from law school,
also confronted the delicate issue of gender tensions.

"Looking towards the future, one of the most important issues the
national community must face is the widening gap between the
liberated, modern, independent women and our traditional men who are
being left behind," she said.

"Women are outperforming men in almost every sphere of life in our
society and the women of east Indian ancestry are no exception to this
rule. They have broken the cultural mould," she said.

No-one as much as her.


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