Rose­marie Sant

GML EN­TER­PRISE DESK

Patrick Man­ning served as prime min­is­ter of T&T for four terms and as the MP for San Fer­nan­do East for 44 years be­fore he was forced to bow out of ac­tive pol­i­tics in 2015, three years af­ter he suf­fered a stroke.

Known for his dap­per dress and in­fec­tious laugh­ter, Man­ning was re­gard­ed as the con­sum­mate politi­cian by those who worked along­side him. Even in the face of ill­ness, he con­tin­ued to be pos­i­tive. His wife, Hazel, said, "He al­ways laugh­ing, chat­ting and talk­ing. He loved to lime with his friends."

Patrick Au­gus­tus Mervyn Man­ning was born in San Fer­nan­do on Au­gust 17, 1946. He re­ceived his sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, and his bach­e­lor's de­gree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona, in 1969. Af­ter grad­u­a­tion he re­turned to T&T where he worked as a ge­ol­o­gist for Tex­a­co.

His colour­ful, four-decade po­lit­i­cal ca­reer be­gan when, at age 24, he was elect­ed San Fer­nan­do East MP. That was in 1971 and in the fol­low­ing years, he held a se­ries of mi­nor gov­ern­ment po­si­tions in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Dr Er­ic Williams, in­clud­ing par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary in var­i­ous min­istries be­fore be­ing ap­point­ed ju­nior min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance. In 1979 he was giv­en the ad­di­tion­al po­si­tion of ju­nior min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Man­ning got his first full Cab­i­net po­si­tion in 1981 when, fol­low­ing the death of Dr Williams, George Cham­bers be­came prime min­is­ter. He was hand­ed the port­fo­lios of In­for­ma­tion and In­dus­try and Com­merce, then lat­er En­er­gy and Nat­ur­al Re­sources.

His as­cent to the coun­try's high­est elect­ed po­lit­i­cal of­fice be­gan af­ter the 1986 gen­er­al elec­tion when the PNM suf­fered its worst elec­toral de­feat. Man­ning was one of on­ly three PNM can­di­dates who won their seats. The oth­ers were Mor­ris Mar­shall and Muriel Don­awa-Mc­David­son.

Cham­bers im­me­di­ate­ly re­signed as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM and Man­ning was ap­point­ed Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. In 1987 he was elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty.

How­ev­er, Man­ning's tenure as Op­po­si­tion Leader was brief. In 1988, a split in the rul­ing Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) left the PNM as the mi­nor­i­ty Op­po­si­tion par­ty. In 1990 Bas­deo Pan­day was ap­point­ed Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

Be­hind the scenes, Man­ning be­gan re­build­ing the par­ty, bring­ing new faces to the PNM front lines. Among them, a young Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Colm Im­bert, the late Ken Val­ley and Au­gus­tus Ram­rek­ers­ingh. When the PNM de­feat­ed the NAR in the De­cem­ber 1991 elec­tion, they were giv­en cab­i­net po­si­tions in the first Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Man­ning served his first term as prime min­is­ter from De­cem­ber 17, 1991, to No­vem­ber 9, 1995. In 1995, he called a gen­er­al elec­tion one full year be­fore it was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due. The PNM and UNC each won 17 seats and the NAR won two seats.

The UNC and the NAR unit­ed in a coali­tion and formed the Gov­ern­ment, and UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day re­placed Man­ning as prime min­is­ter.

Man­ning, back in the po­si­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader, led the PNM to an­oth­er de­feat in the 2000 polls.

T&T re­turned to the polls in De­cem­ber 2001 af­ter the UNC lost its ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives fol­low­ing four de­fec­tions. The re­sult­ing 18-18 tie left the coun­try in lim­bo un­til then pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son ap­point­ed Man­ning as prime min­is­ter. Robin­son would ex­plain years lat­er, that it was be­cause of his ex­pe­ri­ence with Pan­day in 1986 that he took that de­ci­sion.

Un­able to elect a Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Man­ning pro­ceed­ed to rule with­out Par­lia­ment un­til the need to pass a bud­get forced him to call elec­tion in Oc­to­ber 2002. The PNM won by a mar­gin of 20 seats to 16.

Man­ning was again elect­ed prime min­is­ter in No­vem­ber 2007 when the PNM won 26 of the 41 seats in Par­lia­ment. This proved to be his most con­tro­ver­sial term, when ris­ing crime and some na­tion­al projects drew pub­lic crit­i­cism.

Dur­ing this time, T&T host­ed two ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al events, the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as and the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing, and Man­ning pur­sued his vi­sion to make T&T the fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal of the Caribbean. He set up a team com­pris­ing Arthur Lok Jack, Ter­rence Far­rel, Ken Gor­don and Bhoe Tewarie, among oth­ers, to com­pile a strate­gic plan, Vi­sion 2020, to map the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try.

Fac­ing mount­ing crit­i­cism of his lead­er­ship style, Man­ning de­cid­ed to seek a fresh man­date. On April 9, 2010, he ad­vised Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to dis­solve Par­lia­ment and a gen­er­al elec­tion was called two years soon­er than con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due on May 24, 2010. The PNM lost to the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of the UNC.

Fol­low­ing that de­feat, Man­ning re­signed as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader but re­mained San Fer­nan­do East MP. It was one of the low­est mo­ments in his po­lit­i­cal life as the rank and file of the par­ty seem­ing­ly turned on him with mas­sive protests out­side the par­ty's Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters.

Man­ning was sent to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee fol­low­ing state­ments he made in Par­lia­ment on No­vem­ber 19, 2010, dur­ing a de­bate on the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Bill about the pri­vate res­i­dence of Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He was sus­pend­ed from the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on May 16, 2011.

In Jan­u­ary 2012, Man­ning suf­fered a stroke from which he nev­er ful­ly re­cov­ered. By May 2015, with an elec­tion due, he was sig­nalling an end to his 44 years of pub­lic ser­vice. Fol­low­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion last Sep­tem­ber, Ran­dall Mitchell re­placed him as San Fer­nan­do East MP.

On the morn­ing of Tues­day, June 28, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley an­nounced that Mr Man­ning had been ad­mit­ted to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. He was di­ag­nosed with acute myeloid leukemia on Thurs­day and died at 8.15 am yes­ter­day.

High­lights of Man­ning's po­lit­i­cal ca­reer

?n Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber, May 26, 2010�June 17, 2015

n Prime Min­is­ter, No­vem­ber 7, 2007�May 25, 2010

n Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Oc­to­ber 9, 2002�No­vem­ber 6, 2007

n Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, De­cem­ber 24, 2001�Oc­to­ber 9, 2002

n Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Jan­u­ary 12, 2001�De­cem­ber 23, 2001

n Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, No­vem­ber 9, 1995�De­cem­ber 11, 2000

n Prime Min­is­ter, Jan­u­ary 13, 1992�Oc­to­ber 6, 1995

n Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber, Sep­tem­ber 9, 1990�No­vem­ber 19, 1991

n Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, De­cem­ber 29, 1986�Sep­tem­ber 8, 1990

n Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and Nat­ur­al Re­sources, No­vem­ber 17, 1981�Oc­to­ber 29, 1986

n Min­is­ter of In­dus­try, Com­merce and Con­sumer Af­fairs, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the Prime Min­is­ter, May 13, 1981�Sep­tem­ber 18, 1981

n Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the Prime Min­is­ter, March 30, 1981���May 12, 1981

n Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary, Sep­tem­ber 22, 1976�March 29, 1981

n Port­fo­lio to over­see To­ba­go and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, In­for­ma­tion and Fi­nance 1979�1981

n Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of the Prime Min­is­ter, Feb­ru­ary 11, 1973�June 19, 1976

n Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Pe­tro­le­um and Mines May27, 1971�Feb­ru­ary 10, 1973

By the date of the tenth dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment in 2015, Patrick Man­ning had served 44 years in the pol­i­tics of T&T.