GUYANA had Janet Jagan, Dominica, Dame Eugenia Charles and Jamaica Portia Simpson-Miller as prime ministers. Now Trinidad and Tobago, according to how the fates evolve next month, could have its first female prime minister in 58-year old Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
Already, supporters in her United National Congress (UNC) party see something symbolic in the number 24 for her. She won leadership in the internal UNC elections on January 24, and exactly a month later, on February 24, she was appointed the country’s opposition leader.
Now, they’re anticipating that in the May 24 general elections, she will be crowned Prime Minister of the multi-ethnic country.
Whether she propels the unified team of parties successfully into the elections, Mrs. Persad-Bissessar would have chalked up another item of firsts as the first woman to lead a party into the elections.
Among her other firsts include being appointed the first woman to serve as attorney general; the first female to act as prime minister; and the first as leader of the opposition.
Despite the unpopularity of the current administration, winning the parliamentary elections will be no shoo-in, as Mrs. Persad-Bissessar is facing the formidable well-greased machinery of the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) and its 64-year-old political leader, Patrick Manning, who ruled the country for 13 of the past 17 years and easily won re-election in November 2007.
Mrs. Persad-Bissessar, simply known as Kamla to everyone, has to step up her campaign and go beyond the genteel words of love she has been dishing out from the political platform and get down to identifying strategies and policies for governing the country.
So far, the country has not heard anything substantive about the polities of the UNC and its coalition partners for running the country if they form the next government. Opposition speakers have neither countered the ruling administration’s handling of the economy beyond the usual rhetoric.
I’m sure they are keeping their proposed economic and social policies close to their chest as an election strategy but a country that has watched the Manning administration pump billions of dollar into massive high-rise buildings and summits that did nothing or little to impact their lives, is hungry to hear how the coalition team will bring improvements to them.
They don’t want to hear how she will cry with them when they are sad, and laugh with them when they are happy.
Now that the coalition of parties have formalised the People’s Partnership during the past week, speakers should be able to feed the population some ideas on how they plan to run the affairs of the country.
Winston Dookeran, leader of the Congress of the People (COP), one of the alliance partners, in the first platform of the coalition group painted an economic scenario of what the treasury may look like based on  low prices for natural gas and reduced exports of oil.
The economy — which posted GDP decline of 3.2 per cent last year, the first contraction in 16 years — is in a fragile state, according to Mr. Dookeran, a former Finance Minister and a former Central Bank governor.
The coalition group also has to convince the masses that their partnership of parties and groups was not on shaky ground and could withstand the pressure of government even when they have to take unpopular decisions which may not sit well with one of the partners.
Already, prime minister Manning and his platform speakers are pouring scorn on the amalgamated group, telling the population that coalitions have never worked in the country, and the current party of parties arrangement will not last beyond the marriage and honeymoon.
He gave examples of the 1986 coalition government of the National Alliance for Reconstruction, which began to tear apart after two years, and the 1995 coalition of the UNC and the NAR to form the government which cracked midway in their term.
Like typical politicians in the campaign hustings who never give the whole picture, Mr. Manning failed to point out that the key common ingredient in the two coalitions was veteran politician Basdeo Panday, who now spends his time writing his autobiography, having lost the leadership post to Mrs. Persad-Bissessar and has refused to take any active part in the UNC.
For the record, there are successful coalition governments around the world, such as Turkey, Japan, and Norway to name a few.
On the flip side of the coin, the ruling administration, while making out the coalition of parties as fragile and without substance, must itself give solid and incontrovertible reasons why the population should vote it back in government, giving it control of the purse strings once again.
How would they justify spending US$317.000 to erect a gigantic national flag, or US$120 million to host the Fifth Summit of the Americas and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting last year, and the US$40 million to construct and furnish a palatial prime minister’s residence and diplomatic centre? Or the wild-west spending on buildings that remain empty and the award of multi-million dollar contracts to Chinese contractors?
How would they justify the spending of the dwindling energy revenues when the health service continues to be in a deteriorating state; roads throughout the country in deplorable condition; when people cannot get a 24-7 supply of potable water; why the agricultural sector has been so neglected? And so many, many more questions.
Prime Minister Manning must also engage in some deep introspection on why, almost overnight, the country turned its back on his administration that forced him to call a snap election mid-term in the five years of his administration.
What was it about his leadership that turned them off? Why is there a wide disconnect between him and the masses? Why did he describe himself as the most “vilified” prime minister the country has ever seen?
It’s left to be seen on May 24 whether the five parties and groups which signed the unity pact that seeks multi-ethnic support can pull it off and whether they can cut across the mix of Afro-Trinidadians and Indo-Trinidadians who traditionally vote along ethnic lines. The group is also hoping to  capitalize on popular discontent of PNM supporters.
In the 2007 election, the PNM won 300,000 votes to win the majority 26 seats. The UNC’s vote was 194,000, winning 15 seats, and the COP picked up over 148,000 votes, although not winning a single seat as deemed under a Westminster system.
The COP’s vote, according to political analysts, comprised disenchanted supporters of the UNC and floating voters who are not aligned to any political parties.
Whether the electorate will vote in the majority for the coalition group in the 41 constituencies to give them victory in the elections and add another ‘first’ for Kamla will be known in due course.