Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Last week­end, two women were elect­ed to key po­si­tions in the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan beat the in­cum­bent Joseph Toney to be­come the COP's new chair­man while Pene­lope Beck­les de­feat­ed MP?for Laven­tille East/Mor­vant Don­na Cox for the po­si­tion of fe­male vice-chair­man of the PNM.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan was first elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on May 24, 2010, rep­re­sent­ing the con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do West as a mem­ber of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. An en­gi­neer, she was then ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. She is cur­rent­ly the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In 2007, Beck­les, an at­tor­ney, be­came this coun­try's first fe­male Deputy Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. In ad­di­tion to her new po­si­tion, she takes on sev­er­al roles in the par­ty, in­clud­ing la­dy vice chair­man for the Ari­ma con­stituen­cy and pub­lic re­la­tions and wel­fare of­fi­cer for the Na­tion­al Women's League. Seep­er­sad-Bachan and Beck­les are among the many women who have been mak­ing their marks in lo­cal pol­i­tics for decades. Some of the oth­er no­table fe­male politi­cians in T&T in­clude:

Eu­lalie James

Eu­lalie James en­tered Par­lia­ment in a by-elec­tion, fol­low­ing the death of PNM Laven­tille West MP Mor­ris Mar­shall in March 1994. At that time James was the deputy may­or of the Port-of-Spain City Coun­cil. She served as an MP?from 1994-2007 and died on Oc­to­ber 20, 2011 from di­a­bet­ic com­pli­ca­tions. She was de­scribed by then PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford as "a grass­roots stal­wart" of the par­ty.

Joan Yuille-Williams

Joan Yuille-Williams was nick­named "god­moth­er" by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans dur­ing her time as the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs un­der the PNM. Yuille-Williams served as a sen­a­tor for the PNM?when the par­ty was in both gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion. Williams, well known for her so­phis­ti­cat­ed sense of style, now serves as the Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM.

Karen Nunez-Tesheira

Karen Nunez-Tesheira, T&T's first fe­male fi­nance min­is­ter, was first elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on No­vem­ber 5, 2007, for the new­ly cre­at­ed D'Abadie/O'Meara con­stituen­cy. An at­tor­ney by pro­fes­sion, Nunez-Tesheira has con­sult­ed in busi­ness law for com­pa­nies in the en­er­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors, as well as in pro­bate mat­ters, in­clud­ing the draft­ing of pro­bate rules for the OECS. She has served on the boards of the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, Prop­er­ty and In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the He­roes Foun­da­tion, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that works with young peo­ple.

Oc­c­ah Sea­paul

Oc­c­ah Sea­paul was the first fe­male Speak­er of the Low­er House. She made head­lines in 1995 when then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning called a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency and placed her un­der house ar­rest at 9 Mary Street, St Clair. Sea­paul was viewed as a pos­si­ble threat to the Gov­ern­ment, as she had sus­pend­ed a PNM MP and was threat­en­ing to sus­pend two more. Her broth­er and then a PNM mem­ber Ralph Maraj de­fect­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as a re­sult of the state of emer­gency.

Hulsie Bhag­gan

Hulsie Bhag­gan was elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 1992 as mem­ber for Ch­agua­nas. De­scribed as a rad­i­cal, one of her most not­ed fights was against the con­struc­tion of the Guaya­mare sec­tion of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way al­most 20 years ago.

She, along with for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, burned the con­sti­tu­tion and held protests over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of time. In the end the State won, but her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer peaked. In the 1990s, her rad­i­cal­ism placed her in the spot­light on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, re­sult­ing in her evic­tion from the UNC and from front­line pol­i­tics in 1995, af­ter head-on con­fronta­tion with then UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day.

Lin­da Ba­boolal

Dr Lin­da Ba­boolal was the coun­try's first woman to act as pres­i­dent both dur­ing the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion regime and for cur­rent Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards. She was al­so the first woman to hold the of­fice of Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate in the his­to­ry of T&T-be­tween 2002 and 2007. Ba­boolal, then the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Barataria/San Juan, held sev­er­al min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios, in­clud­ing So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Health.The moth­er of five, who is al­so a gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er, con­tin­ues to do vol­un­tary work and ad­vo­cates for the pro­mo­tion of women.