Christine Kangaloo

Christine Carla Kangaloo ORTT (born 1 December 1961) is a Trinidadian politician, who is the president of Trinidad and Tobago since 2023. She was president of the Senate of Trinidad and Tobago from 2015 until her resignation to run for president in 2023. She is the only person to serve as both President and Vice President of the Senate of Trinidad and Tobago, the first woman to serve as Senate Vice President and third woman to serve as acting President of Trinidad and Tobago and Senate President. She became the second woman to serve as President of Trinidad and Tobago upon her assumption of office on 20 March 2023. Kangaloo has served as an Opposition Senator, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Minister of Legal Affairs and Minister of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education in previous People's National Movement governments.

Biography

Christine Kangaloo was born into a Presbyterian Indo-Trinidadian family to Carlyle and Barbara Kangaloo and she is the fifth of their seven children. In 2018, she and her husband converted to Roman Catholicism. She graduated from the University of the West Indies and Hugh Wooding Law School and with a degree in law.

On 12 January 2001, she first became a member of parliament as an opposition senator under the tenure of Opposition Leader Patrick Manning. She then served as Vice President of the Senate and subsequently Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister in 2002. She was then appointed Minister of Legal Affairs in 2005. In the 2007 Trinidad and Tobago general election, she was elected to the House of Representatives as the People's National Movement (PNM) candidate for Pointe-à-Pierre and served as the Minister of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education. On 23 September 2015 she was elected as President of the Senate.