SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo will make the "per­fect Peo­ple's Pres­i­dent" of T&T should she be elect­ed as this coun­try's next head of state. This en­dorse­ment came from her in-laws, An­tho­ny and Beu­lah Gar­cia, last Tues­day at their Ari­ma home.

On Jan­u­ary 6, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced his Gov­ern­ment would be sup­port­ing Kan­ga­loo to re­place Paula-Mae Weekes as Pres­i­dent. If Kan­ga­loo is elect­ed by the Elec­toral Col­lege on Fri­day, she would be­come T&T's sev­enth Pres­i­dent. She will al­so be the sec­ond fe­male to be ap­point­ed to that post.

In se­lect­ing Kan­ga­loo, an at­tor­ney and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, Row­ley de­scribed her as a qual­i­fied "long-ser­vice pub­lic of­fi­cer."

"Sen­a­tor Kan­ga­loo did serve with the PNM and was ap­point­ed on very many lev­els. She start­ed out as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor, then served as a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment and, for the last sev­en years, she served as Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and as act­ing Pres­i­dent," Row­ley said, high­light­ing Kan­ga­loo's track record and ex­pe­ri­ence for the job.

"How many oth­er per­sons of any ilk could claim that? And dur­ing that sev­en years, we are sat­is­fied that she is not dis­qual­i­fied by her con­duct or oth­er­wise."

On Tues­day, Gar­cia, a for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter and Ari­ma MP spoke glow­ing­ly about Kan­ga­loo, his daugh­ter-in-law of 24 years, say­ing that her qual­i­ties of "in­tegri­ty, hon­esty, love and ser­vice for the coun­try" would make her the per­fect choice for the post.

Kan­ga­loo is mar­ried to Gar­cia's el­dest son, Ker­wyn Gar­cia, an at­tor­ney.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ject­ed Kan­ga­loo and se­lect­ed Is­rael Khan, SC, as her choice.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's rea­son for her re­jec­tion was Kan­ga­loo's fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the Gar­cias whom she in­sist­ed have been in the "bo­som and bow­els" of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment for years.

Gar­cia (An­tho­ny) is Ker­wyn's fa­ther.

Noel Gar­cia–who holds down two State boards-chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T and Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion–is Ker­wyn's un­cle and An­tho­ny's broth­er.

"Those per­sons who are not in favour of her nom­i­na­tion will try their best to milk every ounce of protest," Gar­cia told the Sun­day Guardian in her de­fence.

Oth­ers, he said, are root­ing for her.

He al­so shot down claims that Kan­ga­loo has been bi­ased in her role as Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, stat­ing that it is "a fig­ment of their imag­i­na­tion" and "an at­tempt to sul­ly her good char­ac­ter."

Dur­ing his five years as a PNM MP, Gar­cia said Kan­ga­loo nev­er showed her bias to­wards him, stat­ing that she al­ways act­ed fair­ly and with a lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

Gar­cia said there were times he had to re­spond to ques­tions in the Sen­ate posed by op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

"Some­times in my ef­forts to ful­ly ex­plain the an­swer I would have gone over my time and Chris­tine would say 'Min­is­ter, your time is up.' I re­mem­ber on one oc­ca­sion when she said 'Min­is­ter, your time is up,' and I men­tioned to her, give me one more minute, and she looked at me straight in the face and said, 'Min­is­ter, your time is up.'"

Former education minister Anthony Garcia and his wife, Beulah, in Arima in 2019.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Gar­cia said "fa­ther-in-law or no fa­ther-in-law," he was nev­er giv­en any pref­er­en­tial or spe­cial treat­ment.

Since the PM's an­nounce­ment, Gar­cia said he has been bom­bard­ed with con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sages and calls. He was al­so caught off guard by the news.

"I sup­port her 100 per cent be­cause I know Chris­tine's abil­i­ty."

Last month, Gar­cia said when re­ports start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing that Kan­ga­loo was the PNM's choice for Pres­i­dent, the mat­ter did come up at a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. At that time, he said, Kan­ga­loo had not been ap­proached by the Gov­ern­ment.

 "So, when the is­sue came to the fore, I was tak­en by sur­prise. As we all know, Chris­tine is a per­son who is very con­fi­den­tial. You could bet your bot­tom dol­lar if you tell her some­thing, and you asked that it not be re­vealed, she will keep it a se­cret."

He said if Kan­ga­loo be­comes the coun­try's next Pres­i­dent she would give it her best shot.

"She is al­ways will­ing to serve."

Gar­cia said he has two daugh­ters-in-law whom he re­gards very high­ly.

"Where Chris­tine is con­cerned, she has al­ways been loy­al, trust­wor­thy and lov­ing to the fam­i­ly. We have worked to­geth­er on many is­sues."

Kan­ga­loo, Gar­cia said, was a pil­lar of sup­port when one of his younger sons died.

He said his son met Kan­ga­loo while they were pur­su­ing their law de­grees.

The first time Ker­wyn in­tro­duced Kan­ga­loo to the fam­i­ly, Gar­cia said he and his wife saw a lot of good qual­i­ties in her.

"Both of us felt that this is a per­son who would have made not on­ly Ker­wyn proud but our fam­i­ly proud by her de­meanour, by her hon­esty, and by her forth­right­ness."

The cou­ple, he said, shares a strong bond.

"I am hap­py that he chose Chris­tine as his life­long part­ner. Ker­wyn is very close to us. He al­ways spoke very high­ly of Chris­tine and said that he found that she had a spir­it where she would not give up if she sets her mind to a cer­tain task. That is a hall­mark of her char­ac­ter."

Through­out Kan­ga­loo's po­lit­i­cal life, Gar­cia said she has done well and stood proud.

"What­ev­er the Op­po­si­tion might say with this nom­i­na­tion, no­body can truth­ful­ly point any fin­ger against her. There is ab­solute­ly noth­ing as far as I am con­cerned that can sul­ly her char­ac­ter and, be­cause of this, I must thank my son Ker­wyn for the choice he has made."

Shar­ing her views, Mrs Gar­cia said one qual­i­ty that stands out with her daugh­ter-in-law is her truth­ful­ness.

"She is so hon­est. Since she en­tered pub­lic life, I have found her to be ex­ceed­ing­ly hon­est. I don't think there is an­oth­er hu­man be­ing hon­est like her. I think that alone qual­i­fies her to be­come the next Pres­i­dent. I think she will make a good Pres­i­dent. She is ap­proach­able and there is noth­ing aloof about her. I think she will be a Pres­i­dent for the peo­ple."

Gar­cia agreed with his wife, say­ing that Kan­ga­loo is a per­son for every­one.

"She in­ter­acts very well. She is able to em­pathise with per­sons."

When Gar­cia con­test­ed the Ari­ma seat in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, he said Kan­ga­loo sup­port­ed him.

Be­fore car­ry­ing out his min­is­te­r­i­al du­ties, Gar­cia said Kan­ga­loo al­so im­part­ed a sol­id piece of ad­vice. "When I first be­came ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter, she told me, 'As a pub­lic fig­ure you will find a num­ber of per­sons will be ap­proach­ing you for favours, please do not ac­cept any in­duce­ments be­cause that will turn against you.'"

That ad­vice stuck in the back of his mind.

"Very ear­ly in my tenure, some­body ap­proached me and of­fered me some fi­nan­cial in­duce­ments so that I could get their child in­to a school. And I said no. I have nev­er ever...that is why no­body to­day can point any fin­ger at me to say that I have been dis­hon­est. And I thank Chris­tine for that en­cour­age­ment. I am very pleased to state that I have nev­er ac­cept­ed any in­duce­ments."

He said by the man­ner in which his daugh­ter-in-law ex­e­cutes her du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties "the pub­lic will have no choice but to grow with her by her deeds."

In time to come, Gar­cia said the pub­lic will come to love Kan­ga­loo for her right­eous­ness, ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to the coun­try and its fel­low men.

"I am cer­tain about that."

Who is Kan­ga­loo?

Kan­ga­loo grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and Hugh Wood­ing Law School with a de­gree in law. She was ad­mit­ted in­to prac­tice in 1985 and was at­tached to the south­ern le­gal team of Hob­sons.

On Jan­u­ary 12, 2001, she first en­tered Par­lia­ment as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment un­der Op­po­si­tion Leader Patrick Man­ning, ac­cord­ing to Wikipedia.

She then served as Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and sub­se­quent­ly Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in 2002. Kan­ga­loo was then ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs in 2005. In the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, she was elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for Pointe-a-Pierre and served as the Min­is­ter of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion. On Sep­tem­ber 23, 2015, she was elect­ed as Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate.

Kan­ga­loo is the on­ly per­son to serve as both Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate of T&T, the first woman to serve as Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent and the third woman to serve as act­ing Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent.

5 things you may not know about Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo

1. She loves play­ing lawn ten­nis and her favourite play­er is Rafael Nadal.

2. She loves read­ing books writ­ten by for­mer first la­dy Michelle Oba­ma.

3. Bak­ing cup­cakes for her nieces and nephews is one of her favourite things to do.

4. She takes pride in pro­tect­ing her broth­ers af­ter los­ing her on­ly sis­ter many years ago. She al­so lost one of her broth­ers, Jus­tice Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent.

5) She de­lights in smelling a pot of fresh­ly brewed cof­fee, al­though she does not con­sume the drink.