Political Leader of the UNC Kamla Persad-Bissessar celebrates victory at the party headquarters in Chaguanas on Monday night. She is to be sworn in as the Trinidad and Tobago’s 9th prime minister
By Prior Beharry
KAMLA Persad-Bissessar, 73, will be sworn in as the 9th prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago at 4 pm on Thursday.
A release from President’s House on Wednesday stated that President Christine Kangaloo will swear her into office.
The United National Congress (UNC) and its Coalition of Interests won the 2025 general elections on Monday, with preliminary results from the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) stating that they attained 26 seats in the Lower House of 41 MPs. The former ruling party, the People’s National Movement (PNM), mustered 13 seats, with the Tobago People’s Party winning the two Tobago constituencies.
Persad-Bissessar had campaigned on promises of higher public wages, describing the election to be “for the mother walking the aisles of the grocery store with her children, always with a pen, a pencil, or a calculator in hand because food prices keep rising and she has to keep a tab on what she can buy.”
She was also the 6th prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago between 2010 to 2015 when her UNC party won the elections in another coalition gaining 29 seats on that occasion.
A lawyer by training, Persad-Bissessar first entered politics as an alderman at the local government level in 1987. She became the first female attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago in 1996 and in 2010, was the first woman to be prime minister of the country. She was also the first woman to chair the Commonwealth of Nations.
On Thursday, she will also be the first woman to serve two non-consecutive terms as prime minister.
According to the law, a Cabinet can only be constituted with a prime minister and attorney general.
Persad-Bissessar will have a large cabinet, now with the possibility of appointing 43 to portfolios.
In addition to her 28 MPs (including the two TTP seats), Persad-Bissessar has to appoint 16 senators to the Upper House, one of whom will be the Senate president.
