Brent Zephyrine

Sup­port for for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning po­si­tion that he should be able to de­fend him­self ad­e­quate­ly be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee has come from his long-time po­lit­i­cal ne­mi­sis, Bas­deo Pan­day.Speak­ing in an in­ter­view, Pan­day was re­fer­ring to the de­feat­ed mo­tion of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, dur­ing Fri­day's par­lia­men­tary sit­ting.While Pan­day ad­mit­ted that he was not aware of "the facts about the case," he saw it as on­ly "nat­ur­al" that he (Man­ning) be able to de­fend him­self ad­e­quate­ly be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee and agrees with Man­ning that there was need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form."I would have thought that in this mod­ern age, if some­one is ac­cused and charged for some­thing, he should be per­mit­ted to put for­ward his best de­fence," Pan­day said."One can hang on to a lot of fool­ish­ness and ar­cha­ic cus­toms in or­der to de­ny some­one the right to de­fend them­selves...This is a mod­ern age."I agree with him (Man­ning) that there is need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and I don't think any­one has laboured that point any more than I have done."

In his re­sponse to Jus­tice Min­is­ter Hu­bert Vol­ney's ref­er­ence to Man­ning's mo­tion (to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion be­fore the com­mit­tee) as invit­ing a "stranger" to "re­lin­quish con­trol" over the "in­ter­nal pro­ce­dures of the House," Pan­day said the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to hide be­hind old laws could stag­nate the na­tion's progress.The mo­tion gar­nered no sup­port from the 27 MPs on the Gov­ern­ment side, with the ma­jor­i­ty of his (Man­ning) own par­ty col­leagues present (five MPs), in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, opt­ing in­stead, to ab­stain from vot­ing. Three PNM MPs sup­port­ed the mo­tion."I think that it in­di­cates that there is need for a third po­lit­i­cal force in T&T," Pan­day said."The PNM looks as though it is dy­ing a slow death and the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in the coun­try are to­tal­ly dis­sat­is­fied with the way the PP is run­ning the Gov­ern­ment," Pan­day said.

Asked whether he be­lieved the dis­par­i­ty in vot­ing among the Op­po­si­tion spelt di­vi­sion with­in the ranks of the PNM, Pan­day said that the split was "open and bla­tant now," par­tic­u­lar­ly since "they did not sup­port Mr Man­ning."He said: "There is a di­vi­sion in the par­ty which is very, very deep...and they are pre­pared to come to Par­lia­ment and demon­strate it."

When re­mind­ed of a sim­i­lar di­vi­sion in the UNC, Pan­day was quick to note a very key dis­tinc­tion cit­ing clear­ly that "the two cas­es were not the same."We are talk­ing about a PNM Op­po­si­tion...there has nev­er been di­vi­sion in a PNM Op­po­si­tion and once that starts, it in­di­cates that de­cay has set in," he said."You can't com­pare the two be­cause the PNM was re­gard­ed as the sol­id par­ty that does not di­vide."The UNC has al­ways had dif­fer­ences of opin­ion."Pan­day said the PNM was a par­ty known for "its uni­ty and its dis­ci­pline and all kinds of things and that par­ty has in­di­cat­ed that there is a big crack in the ranks and once that hap­pens, the PNM will slow­ly die."

Asked whether those Op­po­si­tion MPs who sup­port­ed the mo­tion-Dr Amery Browne, Fitzger­ald Jef­frey and Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh-should face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion, Pan­day said while the is­sue was "a mat­ter for the PNM," had he been the leader of any such par­ty, he would "have a cau­cus and try to sort the dif­fer­ences out."If you are the leader and there are peo­ple in the par­ty who are flout­ing par­ty rules and poli­cies, then you take them be­fore the cau­cus and let the par­ty de­cide what kind of dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion could be tak­en against them," he said.