Kamla Persad-Bissessar

Persad-Bissessar was the country's first female prime minister, attorney general, and opposition leader, the first woman to chair the Commonwealth of Nations and the first woman of Indian origin to be a prime minister of a country outside of India and the wider subcontinent.

Persad-Bissessar became the Political Leader of the United National Congress in 2010. After her party lost the 2015 general elections, she served as Leader of the Opposition. After leading the UNC and its Coalition of Interests to victory in the 2025 general elections, she was again sworn in as prime minister on 1 May 2025.

In 2011, Persad-Bissessar was named the thirteenth most influential female leader around the world by Time magazine.

Early life and family

Kamla Susheila Persad was born in rural Siparia in southern Trinidad to Lilraj and Rita Persad, both Hindus of Indian descent. Her father was a bookkeeper and worked in the accounting department of Texaco, while her mother was a maid and labourer in the cocoa fields, who later owned and operated a roti shop. Persad-Bissessar had one brother and three sisters; her brother and eldest sister are deceased. Her sister Vidwatie Newton resides in London and her other sister Sally Ahmad resides in New York City.

Her paternal grandparents were Soomintra Persad (née Gopaulsingh) and Choranji Persad, and her maternal grandparents were Rookmin and Ramprit. Her paternal grandmother, Soomintra, was a market seller who was a founding member of the Saraswati Prakash Mandir, a Hindu temple at Boodoo Trace in Penal, and she had organized a ladies Indian singing and Hindu prayer group, as well as being an elder counsellor who helped those in need. Her maternal grandmother, Rookmin, and her maternal great-grandmother, Sumaria, were both laborers in the sugarcane and cocoa fields and both had to become the breadwinners to support their families after their husbands died at young ages. Persad-Bissessar has credited her mother, grandmothers, and great-grandmother as setting examples for her in feminism and paving the way for her.

She was born into a Brahmin Hindu Indian family; her ancestors emigrated in the 1880s from India to Trinidad through the Indian indenture system. Her maternal great-grandparents (her maternal grandmother's parents), Sumaria and Seepersad, were from India. Sumaria had left India from the Madras Port. Her paternal great-grandparents (her paternal grandfather's parents) were Pundit Ram Lakhan Mishra, son of Pundit Bhawani Swaroop Mishra, and Ganga Mishra from India. Pundit Ram Lakhan Mishra was from Bhelupur in modern day Bihar. Pundit Ram Lakhan left India from the Port of Calcutta aboard the ship Volga and landed in Trinidad on 21 October 1889. After indentureship, Pundit Ram Lakhan and Ganga Mishra had settled at Boodoo Trace in the town of Penal in southern Trinidad. In 2012, Persad-Bissessar visited her paternal great-grandfather's village on a state visit to India. In 2025 when Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, made a state visit to Trinidad and Tobago, he referred to Persad-Bissessar as "Bihar ki beti" (transl. "daughter of Bihar").

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Education

Persad-Bissessar spent her early childhood living in a joint family with her parents and paternal grandparents at Boodoo Trace in Penal, where she attended the Mohess Road Hindu School. In 1959, at the age of seven, her family moved to Siparia, where she attended the Erin Road Presbyterian Primary School, and later the Siparia Union Presbyterian Primary School. In 1963, she was accepted to Iere High School in Siparia, a new co-ed school at the time. While attending Irere, she was a top debating student, champion badminton and netball player, and she excelled in her classes and was placed in special classes to write the GCE O Levels in 1966. She graduated in 1969.

When Persad-Bissessar was sixteen, she wanted to go to the United Kingdom to further her studies, but her traditional father and uncles insisted she stayed in Trinidad and Tobago. However, her mother eventually convinced them to send her. Persad-Bissessar then left Trinidad at the age of seventeen, in August 1969, to attended Norwood Technical College in West Norwood, London, England. While in college in England, she worked as a social worker with the Church of England's Children's Society of London.

By the time she left Trinidad, she had already met her future husband Gregory Bisessar, and he was already in England when she was attending college. They married two years later in 1971, when she was eighteen and he was twenty-two. They later left England for Jamaica, where they spent fourteen years. In Jamaica she attended the University of the West Indies in Mona and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in 1974 and a post-graduate Diploma of Education in 1976. After graduating, she taught at St Andrew High School in Kingston and at the University of the West Indies in Mona, and she was also a consultant lecturer at the Jamaica College of Insurance. She was the youngest lecturer, at the age of twenty-five, to the ever teach at the University of the West Indies. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to attend Columbia University to do research leading to a PhD but she opted to study law instead. In 1985, she graduated from the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill with her Bachelor of Laws (Hons.). During her time at UWI, Cave Hill she gave birth to her son. In 1987, she graduated from Hugh Wooding Law School with her Legal Education Certificate at the top of her class, with awards for being the most outstanding student and having the best overall performance. In 2006, she obtained an Executive Masters in Business Administration from the University of West Indies Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business in San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago.

Political career

In 1987, Persad-Bissessar entered politics serving as an alderwoman on the Saint Patrick County Council until 1991. She then became an opposition senator from 1994 until 1995. Persad-Bissessar then became a Member of Parliament for the Siparia constituency in 1995 and has been ever since. She served as Attorney General in 1995 until Ramesh Maharaj was able to disassociate himself from ongoing cases and again in 2001 after Maharaj left the party. When the UNC formed Government on 22 December 2000, she was sworn in as the Minister of Education.

On 25 April 2006, she received the support of the majority of Opposition MPs for the post of Leader of the Opposition. The position of Leader of the Opposition was declared vacant by President George Maxwell Richards after Basdeo Panday was convicted of failing to make an accurate declaration to the Integrity Commission concerning a bank account held in London. Persad-Bissessar was subsequently appointed Leader of the Opposition on 26 April 2006.

Political leader

On 24 January 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar was elected political leader of the UNC, emerging victorious over the party's founder and former prime minister, Basdeo Panday. She was formally appointed opposition leader on 25 February 2010, having gained the support of a majority of UNC MPs.

Prime minister

Persad-Bissessar took office as prime minister after the victory of the People's Partnership in the general election of 24 May 2010, defeating the previous government of the People's National Movement, which had called an early election. Her election campaign has been analysed as a successful attempt to bring together people with different ethnic backgrounds and ideological affiliations under female leadership. She was the first female prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago and is also the first female Commonwealth Chairperson-in-Office. She was succeeded as Chairperson-in-Office by Julia Gillard with the opening of the 2011 CHOGM on 28 October 2011.

Leader of the Opposition

On 21 September 2015, Persad-Bissessar was appointed leader of the opposition by President Anthony Carmona after her party was defeated at the polls, following the 7 September 2015 general elections. The People's National Movement led by Keith Rowley secured 23 out of 41 seats to form the government, while the People's Partnership coalition led by Persad-Bissessar secured 18 out of the 41 seats in the House of Representatives to form the opposition. In the 2020 general election, the People's National Movement won re-election and Persad-Bissessar remained the Leader of the Opposition. However, the United National Congress did pick up two more seats than previously held.

2nd term as Prime Minister

Having been the leader of her party for fifteen years, she led her party into the 2025 Trinidad and Tobago general election with the Coalition of Interests. She declared a landslide victory and became the prime minister-elect on 28 April 2025 with the UNC winning an estimated 26 of the 41 seats in the House of Representatives. Persad-Bissessar campaigned on increasing public sector salaries, protecting pensions and reopening the state oil company Petrotrin. She was sworn in as prime minister on 1 May. Her 2nd term has been marked by an increase of tensions between Trinidad and Tobago and neighbouring Venezuela. On 27 October she accused Caricom of siding with Venezuela against the United States in the 2025 United States naval deployment in the Caribbean. On 28 October the President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro declared her as persona non grata, she responded by stating "Why would they think I would want to go to Venezuela?"

Persad-Bissessar supported the American and Israeli strikes on Iran in February–March 2026 which resulted in the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar gave her official written statement for African Emancipation Day 2026 (marking the 188th anniversary of the abolition of slavery). She described the transatlantic slave trade as "one of history's greatest crimes against humanity" and praised the unbreakable spirit and determination of enslaved Africans. She also highlighted how descendants of enslaved Africans have enriched every sector of Trinidad and Tobago's society—including music, literature, education, science, public service, and sport. She noted that freedom is not merely inherited but must be protected and strengthened by every generation through building a nation founded on justice, equality, and opportunity.

Personal life

Persad-Bissessar married Gregory Bissessar in 1971, and they have one son, Chris, and a grandson, Kristiano. She and her husband have resided in The Philippines, Penal-Debe, Trinidad and Tobago. She is a grandmother of two and has described herself as an adherent of both Hinduism and the Spiritual Baptist faith. She raised her brother's children after he died in a car accident.