PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – President Christine Kangaloo has defended her decision to appoint “independent” legislators in the Senate after her appointments came under heavy criticism from various quarters including the ruling United National Congress (UNC).
President Christine Kangaloo (File Photo)“For the last 63 years, ever since independence, commentators have invariably referred to the senators appointed by me in accordance with the Constitution as independent senators. Yet suddenly, for the first time in our history, they now refer to them as the President’s senators,” she told the opening of the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business’ Women in Leadership Conference.
She said her past experience as a member of Parliament and as a member of cabinet was an invaluable training ground for her role as the head of state and yet political commentators, who were males, used her “long dead and buried political career” as a hammer to beat her and her family.
“No amount of facts seem to matter to them. It makes no difference that I had given up active politics for a full seven years before I was elected President.
“It makes no difference that, unlike a former distinguished president who just so happened to be male, I did not move from being a cabinet minister one day directly to being president next.
“It makes no difference that, in any event, our Constitution specifically contemplates a sitting member of Parliament becoming president.
“I have sometimes allowed myself to wonder whether the difference in my case is that I am one of only two women to have been President, and whether the reason that the only other former politician to have become president was spared the attacks that have been visited upon me is that he was male.”
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar criticized the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) as the UNC doubled down in defending itself against allegations of “ what appear to be unwarranted attacks on the independence and integrity” of the independent bench of the Parliament.
Speaking at the UNC Monday Nigh Forum, Persad Bissessar, who is also a senior counsel, said that “interestingly, the Law Association, which is often criticized for its silence, had suddenly found its voice to express concern over what it perceives as an attack on ‘the independence and integrity’ of the independent bench in the Senate.
Her remarks follow that of the party’s public relations officer, Dr. Kirk Meighoo, who in a statement on Monday, sought to defend his earlier criticism of the independent bench.
“Furthermore, these Senators have been appointed by the most politically-aligned President in the history of our Republic. Citizens have a right to be skeptical of their actual independence, keep an eye out, and raise questions,” he said.
Late last month, the Senate approved legislation which now sets a minimum one-year term in office for any prime minister to qualify for a state pension as well as a tiered payment structure based on time served.
The legislation has “retroactive” effect from March 10, this year.
The government had earlier achieved the required special majority in the House of Assembly to pass the Prime Minister’s Pension (Amendment) Bill, 2025, that the opposition PNM legislators said was aimed at former prime minister, Stuart Young, who became head of government on March 17 and lost the April 28 general election.
The bill had required a three-fifths majority to pass in both Houses of Parliament, and prior to its passage in the Senate, President of the legislative chamber, Wade Mark, warned against intimidating legislators whether inside or outside of Parliament, would constitute a breach of privilege, and would not be tolerated.
While Mark, a senior member of the UNC, did not single out any one in particular, the ruling came less than 24 hours after Meighoo told a news conference that the government would need the support of four independent legislators to have the bill passed.
Meighoo told reporters that were no truly independent senators in the Upper House, as they were all appointed by President Kangaloo, who he said is “a long-standing and deeply embedded figure within the PNM”.
In its statement, the LATT said “those attacks were directed at members of the independent bench who did not support” the legislation to amend provisions governing qualification for a prime minister’s pension.
In its two-page statement, the LATT said that attacking individuals for expressing differing opinions erodes public trust in democracy.
Prime Minister Persad Bissessar said she wondered how the LATT council had found time to issue its statement instead of being interested in so many other useful things for public discussion.
She said in recent years, lawyers had clamored for their council to strongly oppose virtual court hearings, non-functioning court buildings, delays in judgements, and the secretive process by which the President of the Republic appoints Senior Counsel.
“At times the façade slips and the average citizen can connect the dots. Six decades after gaining independence, the public is awakening to the fact that those who claim to be independent are actually reliant on the PNM’s favor, and will do anything to regain their former status.”
In her address to the Women in Leadership Conference, President Kangaloo said that she should be judged solely on the merit of her performance as head of state.
Despite the negative criticism about her personally, Kangaloo said from the positive response of the public that the three top posts in the government – the President, Prime Minister and Opposition Leader – were held by women, female leadership, which was more likely to demonstrate kindness and empathy, might be what the country needed.
But, she said they would have some challenges.
“These challenges stem from deep-seated institutional biases towards women leaders, to which even we women leaders ourselves, sometimes inadvertently, succumb.
“In the first place, women are often expected to strike an almost impossible balance – to be strong but nurturing, assertive but likeable and capable, but never intimidating – a balance that is not as rigorously demanded of their male counterparts. These expectations can create inhospitable environments for women in leadership.”
She said while women in leadership had come a long way, there was still far to go.
