Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford and Pe­ter Bal­roop

?A coali­tion gov­ern­ment is a recipe for dis­as­ter. So said a fiery Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning as he wad­ed in­to the UNC and COP's "agree­ment" as he ad­dressed par­ty sup­port­ers in Cunu­pia last night. Not mix­ing words, Man­ning warned his ri­vals that those who can­not learn from his­to­ry are doomed to re­peat their mis­takes. Not­ing that there were four failed coali­tions in T&T's his­to­ry, Man­ning said: "It is like putting a cat to watch but­ter." Man­ning al­so dared Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to name her can­di­dates, claim­ing there was a tus­sle for pow­er–for the at­tor­ney gen­er­al, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­istry and even for the post of pres­i­dent. He ac­cused the UNC of prey­ing on Win­ston Dook­er­an's weak­ness.

Mean­while, so­cial ac­tivists Stephen Kan­gal and Dr Pe­ter Vine joined a dozen Rapid Rail pro­test­ers at Chin Chin Road Junc­tion, in the Ca­roni East con­stituen­cy, where the par­ty held its meet­ing. This did not fazed hun­dreds of PNM sup­port­ers brought to the venue by PTSC bus­es and maxi taxis who scanned the plac­ards as they walked by, a vir­tu­al sea of red, to at­tend the ral­ly. For­mer jour­nal­ist Harold Ra­moutar, who has got the nod from the PNM screen­ing com­mit­tee to con­test Ca­roni East again, told the Sun­day Guardian "like they want to go back to bi­son carts." Ra­moutar, who con­test­ed and lost the seat in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, ad­mit­ted Ca­roni East was an op­po­si­tion strong­hold and a tough seat for the PNM to win.