Winston Dookeran

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Winston Dookeran is a Trinidad and Tobago politician and economist. He currently serves as Political Leader of the Congress of the People (Trinidad and Tobago) and as Member of Parliament for the St. Augustine constituency. Dookeran was asked to serve as Prime Minister at the conclusion of the jamat coup d'état in 1990.He lost his seat in the 2007 general election by a mere few votes.

Dookeran spent some fifteen years teaching at the Economics Faculty of the University of the West Indies. In 1981 Dookeran was elected as Member of Parliament for the Chaguanas constituency as a candidate of the United Labour Front. When the ULF merged with other parties to form the victorious National Alliance for Reconstruction, Dookeran was appointed Minister of Planning and Mobilization in 1986. Dookeran later became Deputy Leader of the NAR and acted on several occasions as Prime Minister, most notably during the attempted coup of 1990 when Prime Minister Robinson was held hostage by the Jamaat al Muslimeen. Dookeran lost his seat in the 1991 elections.

He later became Senior Economist at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC). He was also a member of the Executive Board of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the governor of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

In July 1997 he was appointed as Governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. He held that post till 2002. Later that year he joined the United National Congress and won the St Augustine constituency. In October 2005 Dookeran succeeded Basdeo Panday as political leader of the United National Congress after being nominated by Panday unopposed.

On September 10, 2006, Winston Dookeran announced his resignation as political leader of the United National Congress to take up the leadership of the Congress of the People (Trinidad and Tobago), a newly formed political party.

He is a past pupil of Naparima College, San Fernando and graduated from the University of Manitoba, Canada with a B.A. (Hons) in Economics and Mathematics and from the London School of Economics and Political Science, England with an M.Sc in Economics.