TTUTA elects its first female President

Antonia De Freitas is the new TTUTA President, the first female president in the union’s 40 year history.

The mem­ber­ship of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion cre­at­ed his­to­ry yes­ter­day when they elect­ed a fe­male leader.

And while the re­sults were still out­stand­ing last night, the woman se­lect­ed last evening is the first fe­male to lead the or­gan­i­sa­tion since its in­cep­tion in 1979.

The voting process beg­gan around 7 am and end­ed prompt­ly at 5 pm.

The oth­er posts which were con­test­ed by 11 can­di­dates in­clud­ed first vice-pres­i­dent; sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent; third vice-pres­i­dent; trea­sur­er; and gen­er­al sec­re­tary.

TTUTA’s outgoing President, Lyns­ley Doodhai said they anticipated between 7,000 to 8,000 persons to turn up to vote with a membership of over 11,500.

Doo­d­hai, who has served two con­sec­u­tive terms on TTUTA’s ex­ec­u­tive was statute-barred from con­test­ing yes­ter­day’s elec­tion.

He served as sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent from 2013 to 2016, and then as pres­i­dent from 2016 to 2019.