November 7 is decision day for the People’s Nation Party (PNP). Delegates within the 82-year-old party will head to the polls to elect their next president. On the ticket is Lisa Hanna, the four-term member of parliament (MP) for St Ann South Eastern. The party treasurer will go against Mark Golding, MP for St Andrew Southern. If successful, she would be the second woman to lead the party, the first being former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. A former Miss World, Hanna entered politics in 2007 when she was asked by Simpson Miller to serve as the PNP’s candidate in St Ann South Eastern. She was appointed minister of youth and culture in 2012. Here are five things you should know about Hanna.
- Born Lisa Rene Shanti Hanna in St Mary on August 20, 1975, she is the daughter of Rene and Shirley Hanna. Rene was a farmer in the St Mary community of Retreat, while Shirley was a hairdresser in neighbouring St Ann.
- She has one son, Alex, and is married to Jamaican businessman Richard Lake, who she wed in 2017.
- At the age of 14, she co-hosted the television talk show ‘Rappin’ and ‘Enter the Dojo’. That was not her only stint in media; she also co-hosted ‘Our Voices’ with Carlene Smith, and appeared in the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
- A karate black belt and instructor, the shadow minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications from The University of the West Indies.
- Hanna is a director of the Lydford Logistics Group, an agriculture and food-processing facility operating as a special economic zone. The organisation provides services in third-party logistics, farming and agricultural coordination, juice manufacturing, cannabis processing for pharmaceutical use, and a baking facility serving the island’s hotel, tourism, and foodservice sectors.
