Panday, Basdeo (1933– )

Trinidad and Tobago left-of-centre politician, prime minister 1995–2001. In 1975 he formed the union-backed United Labour Front (ULF), which merged into the centre-left National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) in 1984. Expelled from the NAR after disagreements with Prime Minister Arthur Robinson, he formed the left-of-centre United National Congress (UNC) in 1989, a party oriented towards the Indian community. In the hung parliament of 1995, he headed a UNC minority government, which depended on tacit backing from the Tobago-based NAR; as a result, his government proposed greater autonomy for Tobago island.

Panday first gained prominence as a leader of the opposition, and was appointed foreign minister and deputy prime minister in 1986 until dismissed in 1988. As leader of the UNC he became the country's first prime minister of Indian descent; Trinidad and Tobago's Indian community comprises around 40 % of the country's population.

He studied economics at London University, before returning to Trinidad to become head of the main sugar-workers' union, the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers' Trade Union, between 1973 and 1995.