Through The Political Glass Ceiling – the Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad & Tobago’s first female, Kamla Persad-Bissessar

Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s Selected Speeches, compiled, with introduction, contexts and analyses by Dr Kris Rampersad, the book explores the seeming tug-of-war between polarisation in the political arena vis-a-vis other more cohesive cultural forces at play in Trinidad and Tobago society. It also examines the roles of gender and geo-politics among other factors in the contest for leadership between Mrs. Persad-Bissessar as the first female leader of a political party, the United National Congress, in Trinidad and Tobago and the country’s longest standing political entity, the People’s National Movement. Ranging from the country’s experiences with political parties under Dr Eric Williams, through the period of the National Alliance for Reconstruction and ANR Robinson to the period of voting deadlock at the turn of the century involving Basdeo Panday and Patrick Manning, the book provides roadmaps of Persad-Bissessar’s journey to the defining moments of the May 2010 snap election.Selected speeches of Mrs. Persad-Bissessar form the backdrop to these explorations. Speeches presented relate to Mrs. Persad-Bissessar’s “Stepping through the glass ceiling – Decisive moments in her political decision-making”; “ Vision of National & Political Unity”; the gender factor – “to be woman and leader”; “engaging partner watchdogs” and in her various other roles as Leader of the Opposition, Member of Parliament, Attorney General, Minister of Legal Affairs and Minister of Education as well as those presented in other forums as election platforms and interactions with civil society organizations and individuals. Dr Rampersad’s introduction, A Clash of Political Cultures – Cultural Diversity & Minority Politics in Trinidad & Tobago, traces the current political environment to the immediate pre- and post independent periods as Trinidad and Tobago struggles for articulation and definition of a truly all-encompassing national identity from its diversity of “mother cultures.”
Rampersad is a journalist, researcher and writer who has been exploring the diversity of Caribbean society and cultures for some 20 years. Her first book, Finding a Place (2002), captures from early journalistic writings the impact on literature of the encounters of peoples of the various mass immigration streams of the 19th Century with special reference to the experiences of Indian descendants in Trinidad and Tobago. She has also written and presented research to international forums with a multicultural third-world, rural perspective on the interplay of culture, politics, economics, gender and literature in the Caribbean, using data from home-grown situations vis-à-vis imported data and theories to make a case for new approaches that more adequately reflect the realities of Caribbean societies. Her policy critiques and recommendations through oral presentations, print and video documentaries on culture, media, agriculture and information and communication technologies, have been accepted by organisations as the Commonwealth Foundation, World Summit on Information Society, EU-ACP Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation, and UNESCO. She is listed among the International Who’s Who in Cultural Policy, Planning and Research. Available at all major bookstores. For further information contact: krislit2@gmail.com or call (1-868) 352-9728 or 390-9367.

Through the Political Glass Ceiling.
ISBN: 978-976-8228-00-0 9 Paperback
Available at all major bookstores. For further information contact: krislit2@gmail.com or call (1-868) 352-9728 or 390-9367