Padarath praises Persad-Bissessar’s 16 years of leadership

Padarath de­scribed the role of Po­lit­i­cal Leader as de­mand­ing “not on­ly po­lit­i­cal acu­men, but emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al dis­ci­pline, re­silience un­der pres­sure, and an un­wa­ver­ing moral com­pass,” adding that it re­quires long nights, per­son­al sac­ri­fice, and crit­i­cal de­ci­sion-mak­ing that af­fect thou­sands, and some­times mil­lions.

He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has car­ried that bur­den “with grace and re­solve,” lead­ing the UNC in­to gov­ern­ment on two oc­ca­sions and se­cur­ing four con­sec­u­tive in­ter­nal lead­er­ship vic­to­ries, which he said re­flect the con­fi­dence and trust she com­mands with­in the par­ty.

On a per­son­al note, Padarath said he had worked close­ly with Per­sad-Bisses­sar over the years and de­scribed her as “not on­ly a Po­lit­i­cal Leader, but a ma­ter­nal fig­ure: firm when nec­es­sary, com­pas­sion­ate al­ways, and deeply in­vest­ed in the well-be­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He thanked her for her “tire­less nights, per­son­al sac­ri­fices, and un­yield­ing ded­i­ca­tion,” say­ing her lead­er­ship has strength­ened the UNC and con­tributed to a stronger democ­ra­cy.