SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Two broth­ers of Pres­i­dent-elect Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo yes­ter­day de­scribed their sis­ter as strong-willed, re­silient and a cham­pi­on for the op­pressed, as they called on cit­i­zens to give her a chance as the coun­try’s sev­enth Head of State.

David and Wayne Kan­ga­loo basked in the glo­ry of Kan­ga­loo’s vic­to­ry on Fri­day, stat­ing that they were proud and elat­ed for her.

“We are very hap­py that she has been elect­ed as the Pres­i­dent of T&T. We are just en­joy­ing the mo­ment,” said Wayne, gush­ing with pride.

Up to the time of this in­ter­view, the broth­ers had not per­son­al­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed Kan­ga­loo.

How­ev­er, they were in a cel­e­bra­to­ry mood at their Mon Re­pos Road, Cas­cade, home not far from where Kan­ga­loo lives.

Al­though the broth­ers were not with their 95-year-old moth­er, they kept her in­formed of how the votes were be­ing tal­lied.

“Mom­my is very hap­py. She could not have been proud­er of her on­ly sur­viv­ing daugh­ter.”

Kan­ga­loo’s fa­ther has de­part­ed.

Though they were in a joy­ous mood, David said there would be no pop­ping of cham­pagne bot­tles or par­ty­ing.

“We will cel­e­brate in our qui­et way. Ever since we have been a close fam­i­ly. Noth­ing will change. How­ev­er, we will cel­e­brate her vic­to­ry at some point in time.”

Kan­ga­loo de­feat­ed UNC’s nom­i­nee, Is­rael Khan, cop­ping 48 votes.

Khan re­ceived 22.

David re­tired as a chief vet­eri­nar­i­an at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, while Wayne is a re­tired banker.

For all their lives, Kan­ga­loo has pro­tect­ed her broth­ers whom she loves dear­ly.

Grow­ing up, the broth­ers de­scribed Kan­ga­loo as a fight­er, in­de­pen­dent, thick-skinned, down-to-earth and re­silient.

Many tried to ruf­fle her feath­ers, David said, but she re­mained ground­ed, un­wa­ver­ing and calm.

David said those are the qual­i­ties he loves about his ba­by sis­ter.

“She is al­ways strong-willed, metic­u­lous, very mea­sured and a per­son of in­tegri­ty. And al­ways de­fend­ed the down­trod­den peo­ple and care about oth­ers. She was al­ways a cru­sad­er for that type of thing.”

Kan­ga­loo al­so ex­celled in school, has been a de­vot­ed pub­lic ser­vant and fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing the coun­try.

“The record speaks for it­self. I think Chris­tine would try to do her ut­most to en­sure that she rep­re­sents the coun­try and I would ex­pect her to per­form to the best of her abil­i­ty as Pres­i­dent.”

David said his sis­ter de­serves a chance to prove her­self.

“I think so, I think we need to give every­body a chance in what­ev­er po­si­tion... and in spite of all the neg­a­tives that have been sur­round­ing any­body work­ing in the pub­lic ser­vice. We al­ways get a lot of com­ments for and against. But that is democ­ra­cy, right? So every­body is en­ti­tled to their opin­ion and the proof is in the pud­ding when they per­form. So we just have to wait and see how things ma­te­ri­alised.”

“She is a per­son I per­son­al­ly be­lieve is suit­able for the po­si­tion.”

While some of our for­mer pres­i­dents have not lived up to the pub­lic’s ex­pec­ta­tions, David said he was con­fi­dent that Kan­ga­loo will serve the peo­ple and have the coun­try’s in­ter­est at heart.

The broth­ers said cit­i­zens can rest as­sured that Kan­ga­loo would func­tion in a dig­ni­fied and pro­fes­sion­al man­ner.

“We are hope­ful that she will live up to the ex­pec­ta­tions of the pub­lic.”

David said the pat­tern of vot­ing showed the odds were in Kan­ga­loo’s favour.

Kan­ga­loo’s fa­ther-in-law and for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia said he has no doubt that Kan­ga­loo will do a good job.

“All the ac­co­lades should be show­ered on her. I can as­sure her that our fam­i­ly will give her the nec­es­sary sup­port that she needs.”