Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning ap­peared to be schiz­o­phrenic.

"It would ap­pear that the way Man­ning speaks, he and the Prime Min­is­ter are not the same per­son," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "Per­haps he may even one day use that in a court of law to ex­plain away his ac­tions when called to ac­count. He may then say, 'Your Ho­n­our, it is not for me to say what the Prime Min­is­ter did or did not do.'" Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ad­dress­ing a crowd of more than 500 peo­ple at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Meet the Con­stituents Tour at the Hi­malaya Club, Barataria, on Mon­day night. She said that it was both "bizarre" and "fright­en­ing­ly true" to con­sid­er the "er­rat­ic be­hav­iour of these two gen­tle­men–Patrick Man­ning and Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning." "He would con­tin­ue in this vein as he is of­ten prone to do by speak­ing in the roy­al third per­son. So rather than say I would not do this or that, he would re­fer to him­self as the Prime Min­is­ter," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

"So maybe we should get Mr Man­ning to ask the Prime Min­is­ter what did he tell Calder Hart just be­fore he qui­et­ly slipped out of the coun­try?"

She added: "Maybe Man­ning could ask the Prime Min­is­ter that one." Per­sad-Bisses­sar point­ed out that Man­ning made con­stant ref­er­ence to him­self in the third per­son and would tell lo­cal jour­nal­ists that, "the Prime Min­is­ter will not be an­swer­ing that ques­tion." The Siparia MP said: "If we ever need­ed proof of a pos­si­ble Man­ning's schiz­o­phrenic per­son­al­i­ty it came in­to full flow this week when he ad­dressed the me­dia." Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed that Man­ning should vol­un­teer to ask him­self about the Prime Min­is­ter's role in the Ude­cott is­sue. "I want to, once again, ask both these men, on be­half of the peo­ple to whom you are both ac­count­able, what was the na­ture of your con­ver­sa­tion with Calder Hart just be­fore he sud­den­ly re­signed and fled the coun­try?" Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked.

"We, the peo­ple, de­mand an an­swer from you. You sim­ply can't ar­ro­gant­ly re­ply as Mr Man­ning did, 'the Prime Min­is­ter will not be an­swer­ing that.' Who do you think you are?"Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on Man­ning to "wake up" and recog­nise he was "a ser­vant of the peo­ple, elect­ed to the high­est of­fice in the land." She said: "You are both legal­ly and moral­ly bound to ac­count to the peo­ple and we are call­ing up­on you now to ac­count for your ac­tions both as Patrick Man­ning and Prime Min­is­ter." Per­sad-Bisses­sar: "What pop­py­cock is this about the Prime Min­is­ter will not be an­swer­ing that ques­tion. You take the peo­ple of this coun­try to be fools? An­swer the ques­tion or re­sign!"