Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion PNM is ral­ly­ing be­hind for­mer leader Patrick Man­ning in sup­port of the prin­ci­ple be­hind his sev­en-day, North-South march which starts to­day.PNM Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer (PRO) Faris Al Rawi con­firmed the par­ty's sup­port yes­ter­day, say­ing:"We're be­hind it 100 per cent since we have said the way he was sus­pend­ed from the Par­lia­ment was wrong, wrong, so to­tal­ly wrong."Al Rawi said some PN­Mites were ex­pect­ed to be present at the Red House start­ing point when Man­ning kicks off his march at 3 pm un­der the ban­ner "We Not Tak­ing Dat".Man­ning on Mon­day an­nounced the protest march against his re­cent sus­pen­sion from Par­lia­ment when he was found guilty of con­tempt of Par­lia­ment. This was in re­la­tion to al­le­ga­tions he made about Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's house.

Man­ning, who had at­tempt­ed to in­sti­tute le­gal ac­tion, was how­ev­er, sus­pend­ed from Par­lia­ment with im­me­di­ate ef­fect on May 15.The sus­pen­sion is ex­pect­ed to last un­til the end of the cur­rent Par­lia­men­tary ses­sion on June 17.Un­til then, his seat in the Red House is emp­ty and his San Fer­nan­do East con­stituents are with­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment.The first seg­ment of the sev­en-stage march be­gins at the Red House on Knox Street and will pro­ceed up the East­ern Main Road. The day's leg of the march ends at the Croisee, San Juan. Man­ning, 64, re­cent­ly re­turned from a Cuban med­ical check­up where he said he re­ceived a "clean bill of health."

Man­ning, a can­cer sur­vivor, has one kid­ney and has had heart by­pass surgery, and has two ar­ti­fi­cial heart valves, a pace mak­er, plus eye laser surgery all in his med­ical his­to­ry.Man­ning's wife, Hazel, said yes­ter­day she was like­ly to be ac­com­pa­ny­ing her hus­band.Man­ning has ap­plied for po­lice per­mis­sion for the march, it is un­der­stood.Along the walk­a­bout, Man­ning is ex­pect­ed to overnight at lo­ca­tions along the route, his of­fice in­di­cat­ed.

Yes­ter­day, PNM deputy leader Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald said PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley or her­self had not spo­ken with Man­ning on the ini­tia­tive. But she added:"It's Mr Man­ning's ini­tia­tive and this walk for democ­ra­cy that he is un­der­tak­ing is to show he was wrong­ful­ly sus­pend­ed be­cause pro­ce­du­ral­ly how the Gov­ern­ment went about it (sus­pen­sion) was to­tal­ly wrong."Mr Man­ning has his ways of do­ing things and this is his ini­tia­tive."Mc­Don­ald said she could not say if she would be join­ing the march since the is­sue had not been dis­cussed.

Row­ley and chair­man Franklin Khan did not re­ply to calls. PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said he didn't have any idea about the march and wasn't go­ing to com­ment "un­til guid­ed by the po­lit­i­cal leader."How­ev­er, Al Rawi said af­ter yes­ter­day's Sen­ate: "The par­ty stands strong in its view that the pro­ce­dure of the Par­lia­ment (in the sus­pen­sion) was wrong and we all stand be­hind a se­nior MP.He added: "Mr Man­ning is the longest serv­ing MP in the Par­lia­ment and we are unit­ed in our dis­ap­proval of his sus­pen­sion and our uni­ty will be tak­en to all fronts."

Al Rawi said since Man­ning had been treat­ed un­fair­ly, "all arms of the par­ty and all arms of per­sons" were go­ing to be joined in sup­port­ing the re­turn of Man­ning's rights and that of his con­stituents."The ini­tia­tive shows the lev­el of com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy in the PNM and we in­tend tak­ing this (sus­pen­sion is­sue) and the PP's un­holy haste to do Mr Man­ning in, as well as the PP Gov­ern­ment's mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion of one year to all lev­els of the com­mu­ni­ty," he added.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, a few PNM MPs and oth­ers said they would be at the Red House to help launch Man­ning's walk to­day but most oth­ers plead­ed oth­er en­gage­ments.MP Amery Browne said:"This walk seems to be against the un­fair­ness and vi­cious­ness of the PP Gov­ern­ment and it there­fore is very rel­e­vant so I'm se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing at­tend­ing."MP Pat Mcin­tosh said she may be present.MP Paula Gopee Scoon said: "I sup­port Mr Man­ning's en­deav­ours and his agen­da but I have a PNM for­eign af­fairs com­mit­tee meet­ing on Wednes­day (to­day)."

MP Nile­ung Hy­po­lite said: "We're sup­port­ing him but it doesn't mean we have to walk al­so. We have our af­fairs to take care of and I have a com­mit­ment."MP Colm Im­bert said he had a pri­or en­gage­ment. MPs Don­na Cox, Joanne Thomas, Ali­cia Hospedales and Fitzger­ald Jef­fery were un­avail­able.

PP sen­a­tors hit march

For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's North-South march was the sub­ject of PP Gov­ern­ment's dis­missal yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan com­ment­ed on the is­sue as PNM Sen­a­tor Pen­ny Beck­les-Robin­son rose to de­liv­er greet­ings on the up­com­ing oc­ca­sion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day.Ram­lo­gan told Beck­les: "Don't for­get your leader who will be march­ing in the hot sun in a kur­ta in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day."He com­plained that Man­ning "nev­er at­tend­ed a sin­gle In­di­an Ar­rival Day func­tion" while he was Prime Min­is­ter even though he was in­vit­ed.

PP Sen­ate leader Sub­has Pan­day told the T&T Guardian: "I feel Man­ning wants to make a come­back and he views (Kei­th) Row­ley as lack­ing in lead­er­ship qual­i­ties. It seems Man­ning's try­ing to re­vive his for­tunes in PNM.

"For him to do what he's do­ing he must feel he has his MPs' sup­port. But we don't feel threat­ened at all. For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day who once marched through east to west along the cor­ri­dor while he was Op­po­si­tion Leader in 2003, said: "I hope Mr Man­ning's heart can take it. I can give him some ad­vice on suc­cess­ful march­ing but I won't join him. "Mr Man­ning might now see 'do so, ent like so', be­cause his sus­pen­sion from Par­lia­ment might be po­et­ic jus­tice or ret­ri­bu­tion for the sus­pen­sion from the House which I re­ceived in 2006 un­der the PNM Gov­ern­ment."So now he knows what it feels like. I want him to know there­fore, God doh sleep. I al­so hope he's care­ful when he's us­ing the over­pass in his walk­a­bout."