Bas­deo Pan­day, who served as T&T’s fifth prime min­is­ter from 1995 to 2001, was the first per­son of In­di­an de­scent and the first Hin­du to hold that of­fice.

He was first elect­ed to Par­lia­ment in 1976 and served as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion five times be­tween 1976 and 2010, in ad­di­tion to be­ing a found­ing mem­ber of the Unit­ed Labour Front (ULF), the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Pan­day was born on May 25, 1933, in St Julien Vil­lage, Princes Town, to Kissoon­daye and Har­ry “Chote” Sookc­hand Pan­day.

He at­tend­ed New Grant Gov­ern­ment School, St Julien Pres­by­ter­ian School and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do.

He lat­er worked as a sug­ar­cane weigher, pri­ma­ry school teacher and at the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Court where he took notes for sev­er­al mag­is­trates, in­clud­ing Noor Has­sanali, who would go on to be Pres­i­dent dur­ing Pan­day’s term as prime min­is­ter.

In 1957, Pan­day left for the Unit­ed King­dom to fur­ther his ed­u­ca­tion. He ob­tained a diplo­ma in dra­ma from the Lon­don School of Dra­mat­ic Art in 1960 and a de­gree in law in 1962 from Inns of Court School of Law and was called to the bar at Lin­coln’s Inn.

He al­so re­ceived a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Eco­nom­ics from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don as an ex­ter­nal stu­dent in 1965 and was award­ed a Com­mon­wealth schol­ar­ship to go to the Del­hi School of Eco­nom­ics in In­dia to pur­sue a post-grad­u­ate de­gree in eco­nom­ics and po­lit­i­cal sci­ence. How­ev­er, he turned down the of­fer and re­turned to T&T to prac­tice law.

Pan­day’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer be­gan in 1965, when he joined the Work­ers’ and Farm­ers’ Par­ty and made an un­suc­cess­ful run for Par­lia­ment

To­geth­er with fel­low union lead­ers George Weekes and Raf­fique Shah, he found­ed the Unit­ed Labour Front in 1975 and won the Cou­va North seat the fol­low­ing year, be­com­ing an MP and of­fi­cial op­po­si­tion leader.

The next year, the par­ty split in­to two fac­tions and Pan­day was oust­ed as par­ty leader in favour of Shah. He was re­in­stat­ed in 1978 af­ter Win­ston Nanan, who pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed Shah, de­fect­ed to Pan­day and Shah re­signed

In 1980, Pan­day co-found­ed the T&T Na­tion­al Al­liance with ANR Robin­son of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress and Lloyd Best of the Tapia House Group. In 1984, it be­came the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) and in 1985 merged with the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion.

The NAR won a de­ci­sive vic­to­ry in 1986 and Pan­day was named Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs and In­ter­na­tion­al Trade. How­ev­er, the par­ty soon frac­tured and Robin­son reshuf­fled his cab­i­net, rel­e­gat­ing Pan­day to re­duced min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Pan­day, Kelvin Ram­nath and Trevor Su­dama were ex­pelled from the par­ty on Feb­ru­ary 8, 1988, and they went on to found the Cau­cus for Love, Uni­ty and Broth­er­hood (CLUB ‘88), which lat­er be­come the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) on April 30, 1989.

The 1995 gen­er­al elec­tion was a defin­ing mo­ment in Pan­day’s ca­reer, end­ing with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and UNC hold­ing 17 seats each, and the NAR hold­ing two. The UNC and NAR en­tered a coali­tion, bring­ing the UNC in­to pow­er and mak­ing Pan­day prime min­is­ter.

The 2001 gen­er­al elec­tion re­sult­ed in an 18–18 tie be­tween the UNC and PNM, spark­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis over who should form gov­ern­ment. When then Pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son ap­point­ed PNM leader Patrick Man­ning, Pan­day re­fused to ac­cept the po­si­tion of Leader of the Op­po­si­tion in protest.

Par­lia­ment was dis­solved and new elec­tions were called in 2002 and this time the PNM won.

On Jan­u­ary 24, 2010, Pan­day lost his bid to be re-elect­ed UNC po­lit­i­cal leader at the hands of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2010, Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards re­voked his ap­point­ment as Op­po­si­tion Leader

He did not par­tic­i­pate in the gen­er­al elec­tions of May 24, 2010, and his term as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment end­ed.

Pan­day is sur­vived by his wife Oma and daugh­ters Niala, Mick­ela, Nico­la, and Vasta­la.