Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

14 rise to become the country’s 5 th Prime Minister in 1996 until 2000 and its 6 th until 2001 when he lost by a Presidential decision after a tie in the results of the early election that he called. He first entered Parliament in 1972 as an Opposition Senator. Later he became a Member of the House of Representatives and represented the constituency of Couva North from 1976 until 2010. Between 1976 and 2010, except of course when he was Prime Minister, he was at various times the Leader of the Opposition. He campaigned in the 1976 general election as one of the leaders of the United Labour Front (ULF), winning his first seat in Parliament as the Member for Couva North. To contest the 1986 general election he joined forces with ANR Robinson’s Democratic Action Congress, Karl Hudson-Phillips’ Organisation for National Reconstruction and Lloyd Best’s Tapia House to form the NAR (National Alliance for Reconstruction). They won by a landslide, 33-3, replacing the PNM with Robinson becoming Prime Minister. Following that landslide victory he was made Minister of External Affairs and International Trade but disharmony set in and he left the alliance in 1988 to form Club 88 (Club for Love, Unity and Brotherhood), which evolved into a new party, the United National Congress (UNC). In 1992 their candidates won more seats in that election than the then NAR, 13 of 36 seats nationally and improved this to 17 in the 1995 General elections 17-17-2. It could not form the majority in parliament to form the Cabinet, so, with the support of the two seats held by ANR Robinson and the NAR, Basdeo Panday was appointed Prime Minister. Biographies/Books: ---Basdeo Panday, the Making of a Prime Minister: Selected Speeches (1966-1998) ---An Enigma Answered: A First Volume of Speeches ---Man in the Middle: A Second Volume of Speeches NOOR HASSANALI (1918-2006) H e was educated at Naparima College, San Fernando, the University of Toronto, Canada and at Grays Inn, England where he became a