Sopari Mai Reboot! PM Kamla’s 2nd historic election victory to shatter Glass Ceiling
Dr Kris Rampersad 
Defying the naysayers, the challengers, the political and other pundits, Kamla Persad-Bissessar returns to the Prime Ministership of Trinidad and Tobago. The historic landslide sweep into traditional stronghold of the incumbent ruling People’s National Movement and changing the tone and colour of areas considered ‘marginal’ to full blown conquest has set her electoral victory among the stuff of legends!
Further, she returns as the first and second first woman Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago – Through the Political Glass Ceiling II! Demokrissy commends the new Prime Minister and her campaign team on its hard-won electoral victory and looks forward to ongoing collaboration to advance the agenda of the Unfinished Gender Agenda from local to global levels, integrating new media, education and intercultural understanding to seal the election mandate for unification of our fractured political landscape!
At 78, up against one of the youngest contenders for Prime Ministership, Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s victory displays virtually an even larger sweep of the electorate than her initial victory when she became the first woman Prime Minister of the twin-island-state a decade and a half ago.
Sopari Mai Rebooted!
Sopari Ki Mai, Kamla Persad-Bisessar victory at the post is the stuff of legends that resonates from this twin-island Republic across the region to our interconneted diaspora. Here’s How!
PM Kamla Demolishes the Glass Ceiling in Landslide Elections. With a renewed mandate, rebooted and powered by a clear and decisive victory for the United National Congress and its alliance partners, in snap election polls held on April 28, 2025, she saw early concessions from all her opponents. These oponents included the incumbent People’s National Movement leader Dr Keith Rowley, Gary Griffith, leader of the National Transformation Alliance who had served as Minister of National Security in Kamla’s previous regime and the Patriotic Front party of Mikela Panday, daughter of Persad-Bissessar’s mentor and deceased Prime Minister Basdeo Panday.
A few hours into the vote count saw early concession by the People’s National Movement under its dual-headed leadership – incumbent Political Leader Dr Keith Rowley, and his protege, Stuart Young who was handed the Prime Ministership on March 17, 2025.
Lady Jane Grey Term – Shortest Serving Prime Minister
Already subject to picong edged with racial and sexual innuendo and stereotyping that characterises the political climate, Stuart, dubbed ‘Short Pin’ and aligned to short-lived Chinese merchandise, takes his place in the annals of political history as serving a Lady Jane Grey term. Lady Jane Grey, the ‘nine days Queen’ although fifth in line for the throne was named heir by Britain’s Edward VI on his deathbed.
Not unlike the circumstances of Stuart who was proclaimed Prime Minister on March 17 2025, and voted out on April 28, 2025, Lady Grey was proclaimed Queen on 10 July 1553, but the kingdom favoured the true heir to the throne, King Edward’s half-sister, Mary.
In this walk of infamy of the shortest serving leaders, can also be found Mexician President Pedro Lascuráin, who was overthrown in a political coup orchestrated by General Victoriano Huerta just 45 minutes into office on 19 February 1913 and the Sierra Leone President who was arrested as he was being sworn in 1967, and the 13 days for India’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee in May 1996, after his Bharatiya Janata Party could not muster the required support on the floor of the house”
Ninth president of the United States, William Henry Harrison, had 32 days in when he died in office in 1841 and UK’s Liz Truss got 50 days before she was thrust out of office.
Sopari Ki Mai – The Stuff of Legends
Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s victory casts her in the frame of Sopari Mai, the legendary indigeneous goddess worshiped by all ethnicities and races which shares the name of Kamla’s Constituency, Siparia,a place that nurtured her and from which she has drawn her support and strength.
Demolishing the Political Glass Ceiling
Through the Political Glass Ceiling, the book that ushered in her Prime Ministership detailing her vision, philosophies and struggles which I put together in the three weeks following a similar snap election for its pre-election launch, remains as relevant today as it was then.
Sopari Ki Mai as my mother who grew up in that district called Kamla Persad-Bissessar when they met at my book-launch in May 2010, was only given one term to erase the implanted divisiveness and perverse political environment that her culture-centred gender-sensitive campaign sought to reverse. To Ma, as to many women across generations, Kamla’s wins then, and even more poignantly so now, represent the triumph of women to endure and rise above the many torments and trials of deeply-entrenched patriarchal systems and adversarial and confrontational attitudes and behaviours embedded in the political culture.
The issues that shaped Kamla’s ascension to the Prime Ministership detailed in Through the Political Glass Ceiling and which have been relegated to the shadows over the past decade and remained part of the unfinished gender Agenda for equality, equity and balance, are as pertinent then as they are now.
Stronger CARICOM Mia & Kamla
Kamla Persad-Bissessar will join current CARICOM Chair Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley to bolster the Caribbean Gender Agenda and our Women Agents of Change Leadership initiative. PM Mottley immediately commended Kamla for her historic return and welcomed her into the CARICOM leadership fold.
Within the Caribbean she becomes the third leader of Indian Origin, includes President of Guyana Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali who will himself face the polls later this year, and Suriname PResident Chandrikapersad “Chan” Santokhi to deepen and strengthen diaspora relations with renewed focus on leadership thrusts by the Global South which brings former disempowered colonial colonies to bond around common concerns.
Challenge of change in new term in office
And so too is the book that defines her vision and outlook, although it too was relegated to the shadows, and even banned from the arenas of those who were charged with shaping interpretations and educating next generations so we could emerge from the sterility that descended on our landscape and swept her out of office. The entrenched attitude and behaviours perpetuated through the educational, cultural and community systems remain as a core challenge for her to confront in this second time at the helm.
As much a casuality of this, as was the book that contained her life’s benchmarks, and as she herself was, I have more than once cautioned the new generation of politicians and leaders, who instead of trying to chang the swamp allowed themselves to wallow in and be swallowed-up and submerge in its murky depths. See: The Triumph of Gollum in the Land of Shut Up
Coalition of Interests – Conceptualising & Influencing Policy
Such relevance is encapsuled in the concept of unity that I proferred in agenda-setting through the book to define a pathway forward by framing the ideology behind the alliance of parties as a ‘coalition of interests’. The notion of a ‘Coalition of Interests’ articulated in Through the Political Glass Ceiling has shaped the UNC’s ideology as a political party and hence use of the term by every platform-speaker throughout the 2025 campaign.
That is how I have earned the title as a ‘policy influencer’, eh, giving deeper meaning to being an influencer in today’s world of superficial social media influencers to effect deeper change and transformation as a leading agent of change!
Women Agents of Change – Local to Global
Thus, from conceptualisation in my book Through the Political Glass Ceiling, was spawned the national and regional Women Agents of Change initiative, which was spread through lobbying and advocacy to Kamla as first woman Chair of the Commonwealth and core global women leaders into the UN systems where it is now an established global initiative for gender balance, equality and equity.
Picking-up, reknitting and reknotting the threads into medium and long term policy and action beckons now with this new governance mandate.
From triumphirate of singularity to plurality of alliance
The climate of despondence and doom took a turn into the light offered by Bissessar’s trumpet call to children of the Rising Sun, countering the self-serving one-percent dominated trend in governance with a tagline, ‘When the UNC Wins, Everybody Wins,’ took her party to victory.
Over the next few weeks I will delve deeper into mapping the trail of Kamla PErsad-Bissessar’s journey through two legendary and historic election victories, detail the ‘The Clash of Political Cultures, the struggles and lessons learnt, to define the elements missed by the political pundity that underlies Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s second coming.
Get You Copy Limited First Edition
There are still a few first-edition copies of Through the Political Glass Ceiling. Make contact to get yours or for bulk buying to distribute to your communities of interest and to support on-going work in reshaping the policy agenda-setting and decision-making arenas for sustainable futures!
About Dr Kris Rampersad
Dr Kris Rampersad is a leading transformational agent of change, guru of multimedia content creation and policy influence through new media, uniting disciplines of education, culture and media for sustainable development and transformation.
Creator of the newest creative genre, the MultiMedia MicroEpic, AuthenThink Intel and AI AnalyEthics in response to the threat to Human Intelligence by AI, and Story Science that unites creative forms of traditional story -telling with the scientific mindset and methods, she is National Geographic and UNESCO certified educator/facilitator.
She holds the Trinidad and Tobago National Award for Development of Women/Journalism, was winner of the national Lumination Tech Challenge with Traditions Net Technologies and a pioneer winner of Development Policy Blogging for New Media by global development partners as UNESCO/BBC/DIFD & others.
Author and publisher, she composed the song Smarter Than A Smart Phone and Splish Splash A Musical of Interplay of Sea to Sky with children’s fable, I the Sky & Me the Sea, – The Adventures of Munnie Butterfly & Danny DragonFly. She is also Author of the first book on Kamla Persad-Bissessar – Through the Political Glass Ceiling – Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female and LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction, the official commemorative publication of Trinidad and Tobago’s Jubilee Anniversary of Independence.
She is a certified cyborg with multiple certifications across the field of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Generative AI, Cloud Computing, Machine Learning and a PhD in Global Literatures in English. Reach out for transformational development and change policy onsultancy, education and curriculum development, outreach, advocacy and community-based culture and gender sensitive initiatives.
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