Gail Alexan­der

As for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's walk for democ­ra­cy en­ters its fi­nal stages, mem­bers of a PNM "re­birth" group have slammed Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing's re­cent crit­i­cism of the ex­er­cise. When Man­ning be­gan the march last week, Lee Sing said it was fool­ish, that Man­ning had "lost it" and should take up preach­ing as he once said he would do. Lee Sing said those who were fol­low­ing Man­ning were head­ing to a sana­to­ri­um. Lee Sing's daugh­ter-in-law Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, how­ev­er, joined Man­ning's march the same day Lee Sing spoke.

Along with her was PNM gen­er­al coun­cil mem­ber Joel Primus. Both have con­tin­ued walk­ing with Man­ning, in­clud­ing yes­ter­day's leg from Freeport to Clax­ton Bay. Leza­ma-Lee Sing, Primus and oth­ers will al­so be trekking to­day, as Man­ning's walk moves from Clax­ton Bay to Tarou­ba, wind­ing in­to the fi­nal leg to­mor­row to­wards San Fer­nan­do. Yes­ter­day, a PNM group on Face­book's on-line com­mu­ni­ty called "Re­nais­sance-Vi­sion­ary PNM" to which Primus be­longs, is­sued a scathing re­ply to Lee Sing, re­mind­ing him of his calls for PNM heal­ing at PNM's gen­er­al coun­cil. The group said its mem­bers were PN­Mites com­mit­ted to a bet­ter T&T and the name meant "re­birth," since the PNM "must be re­born with a clean slate for fu­ture par­ty lead­ers and should shed pre­con­cep­tions and bi­as­es and start over.

"We are firm in our be­lief that T&T re­mains num­ber one pri­or­i­ty for PNM and there is a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on our part to en­sure that we of­fer the best pos­si­ble op­tions to peo­ple," the group said. "How­ev­er, Lee Sing's com­ments can be con­sid­ered di­vi­sive and a con­tra­dic­tion to a mo­tion he raised at the April gen­er­al coun­cil which called on PNM lead­er­ship to take steps to bring im­me­di­ate heal­ing and me­di­a­tion fol­low­ing the poor show­ing of the par­lia­men­tary arm on Man­ning's re­cent mo­tion in Par­lia­ment. "Lee Sing in­di­cat­ed the im­por­tance of bury­ing the hatch­et and the pro­mo­tion of a unit­ed front...His lat­est com­ments are a re­ver­sal of those dis­cus­sions and bring in­to ques­tion Lee Sing's cre­den­tials to speak on the par­ty's be­half.

"Lee Sing's lat­est out­burst calls for the PNM lead­er­ship to make pub­lic its po­si­tion on Man­ning's walk. It would be fool­hardy to think the lead­er­ship sup­ports Lee Sing's pro­nounce­ments, giv­en PNM's fun­da­men­tal re­quire­ment to rep­re­sent the peo­ple." The group said Lee Sing's state­ments were "dis­re­spect­ful in the high­est or­der...cal­lous and deroga­to­ry, par­tic­u­lar­ly his ref­er­ence to Man­ning's ex­pe­ri­ence with can­cer. "Lee Sing must be re­buked for his in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty which is un­be­com­ing of a pub­lic of­fi­cial," the group said. "We con­demn in the strongest pos­si­ble terms, the may­or or any hold­er of top of­fice call­ing cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly young peo­ple, in­sane."

The group de­fend­ed Man­ning's ini­tia­tive, say­ing PN­Mites would not be against is­sues of democ­ra­cy or tak­ing a stand against Gov­ern­ment's "ex­cess­es" and "in­jus­tices." Cit­ing a list of na­tion­al is­sues, the group said: "This mat­ter has noth­ing to do with Man­ning. "This gen­tle­man is no or­di­nary par­lia­men­tar­i­an...his years of ser­vice have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to T&T's de­vel­op­ment," it said. "It's im­per­a­tive the may­or and the en­tire PNM po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship get off their high horse and come down to earth." The group said Lee Sing's com­ments are "as ill-ad­vised as his il­le­gal wreck­ing of ve­hi­cles in Port-of-Spain and as pre­pos­ter­ous as seek­ing to lim­it the li­cence re­quire­ment of bar own­ers."