New chair­man of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Franklin Khan says the di­vid­ed vote by Op­po­si­tion MPs was "a storm in a teacup."Pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the par­ty, Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, says the mat­ter was sim­ply "a mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion."Both said that the mat­ter was be­ing han­dled out of pro­por­tion in the me­dia.Khan and Al-Rawi spoke at a news con­fer­ence at Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the new ex­ec­u­tive's first meet­ing on Sat­ur­day.Man­ning and three oth­er PNM MPs, in an un­prece­dent­ed de­vel­op­ment in Par­lia­ment, broke par­ty di­rec­tives and vot­ed "yes" for the mo­tion, while five oth­ers, in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, ab­stained.

Khan said the Gen­er­al Coun­cil dis­cussed the mat­ter and agreed no dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion would be tak­en against the mem­bers who broke par­ty ranks by vot­ing "yes" for the mo­tion brought by Man­ning in Par­lia­ment.Khan said the par­ty should seek to en­gage in "heal­ing and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion."He said Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing brought a mo­tion for the par­ty lead­er­ship to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion to achieve that ob­jec­tive.Khan said: "The par­ty's lead­er­ship will now ini­ti­ate dis­cus­sions with the par­lia­men­tary arm to see what dif­fer­ences ex­ist, if any, and what mis­un­der­stand­ing ex­ists, if any, in the par­lia­men­tary arm."He said that must be done be­cause the par­lia­men­tary arm was the pub­lic im­age of the par­ty."My own view is that there was some lit­tle mis­un­der­stand­ing and this is a storm in a teacup," Khan said.

Al Rawi said those who ab­stained from the vote and those who vot­ed yes both sup­port­ed Man­ning's mo­tion. He said the PNM took a con­scious de­ci­sion to "sup­port Mr Man­ning's mo­tion so that he could move on to court." Man­ning is ex­pect­ed to file the mat­ter for de­ter­mi­na­tion in court soon, sources said yes­ter­day."The de­ci­sion to ab­stain from the (Par­lia­men­tary) vote was in sup­port of his mo­tion and the de­ci­sion by cer­tain mem­bers to say 'yes' was al­so in sup­port of his mo­tion," Sen­a­tor Al Rawi said.He said there was a mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the three felt they could have vot­ed yes.But Op­po­si­tion MP Amery Browne did not ex­press that view when asked about his vote on Fri­day.He said he was per­suad­ed by Man­ning in his pre­sen­ta­tion and felt the need to say "yes."

But Al-Rawi in­sist­ed: "There is no di­vi­sive­ness in the is­sue be­cause they are all in the same di­rec­tion of sup­port­ing the move to have it de­ter­mined by the court."Man­ning's mo­tion, which was de­feat­ed when the 27 Gov­ern­ment MPs vot­ed against in on Fri­day, was in­tend­ed to al­low his at­tor­ney to ques­tion wit­ness­es in the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.Man­ning was re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges to an­swer ques­tions to pro­duce ev­i­dence to sup­port his claims about the pri­vate home of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.Mean­while, Khan said the PNM would take to the streets af­ter the East­er va­ca­tion and would al­so en­gage in a three-car raf­fle to ob­tain the much need­ed funds to run the par­ty's af­fairs. (RL)