Shal­iza Has­sanali

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning put the coun­try in elec­tion mode yes­ter­day, when he an­nounced that April 7 would be the start of screen­ing of 41 new can­di­dates. The screen­ing will be­gin in Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, with the oth­er 40 elec­toral dis­tricts fol­low­ing. Though he did not an­nounce the gen­er­al elec­tion date, Man­ning said screen­ing would be­gin two days be­fore Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to file a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against him in Par­lia­ment. Man­ning was de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress dur­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's spe­cial con­ven­tion at Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, caus­ing a packed hall to erupt and chant: "Long live Man­ning." Man­ning said the same day the Op­po­si­tion in­tend­ed to file the mo­tion, the PNM would make an ap­pli­ca­tion to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, James Philbert, to have a demon­stra­tion against their move.

Man­ning said though the PNM had the ma­jor­i­ty of seats in Par­lia­ment, if the mo­tion suc­ceed­ed in Par­lia­ment, he would have to re­sign in one week. Should he fail to step down, Man­ning said Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards would dis­solve Par­lia­ment and a gen­er­al elec­tion would be called. "Those are the laws. So when they file the mo­tion of no con­fi­dence, what they are re­al­ly say­ing is that they want an elec­tion. "But, my dear friends, the meth­ods they use can't work," Man­ning said. "If they feel that the time has come for a gen­er­al elec­tion, then I agree with them, my dear friends," teas­ing his sup­port­ers, who danced and waved their bal­isi­er, buntings and flags.

As a con­se­quence of the Op­po­si­tion's per­sis­tent calls for a gen­er­al elec­tion, Man­ning said: "I now want to di­rect the PNM to com­mence the nom­i­na­tions of can­di­dates ex­er­cise for a gen­er­al elec­tion with im­me­di­ate ef­fect."

As Man­ning dropped the bomb­shell, PNM sup­port­ers went in­to a fren­zy. "Screen­ing will be­gin, ladies and gen­tle­men, on Wednes­day, April 7, be­gin­ning in the con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do. Then we will screen all the oth­ers." In­sist­ing that the PNM was ready and pre­pared for elec­tions, Man­ning warned the Siparia MP that she should not "count her chick­ens be­fore they are hatched." Man­ning said it was not for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to de­cide who led this coun­try. "It is a mat­ter for the peo­ple. It is time for the peo­ple to de­cide. When they go to Par­lia­ment, we march­ing," Man­ning in­sist­ed. De­scrib­ing the con­ven­tion as a spe­cial day, Man­ning said he had full con­fi­dence that when the elec­tion bell was rung the PNM "will beat them" in the East, West, North and South.

Man­ning al­so blew his trum­pet, out­lin­ing all the PNM had done since tak­ing up of­fice in 2001, among them the num­ber of jobs cre­at­ed, a re­duc­tion in tax­es, free ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, med­ica­tion and train­ing pro­grammes. "Yet they say the PNM has done noth­ing for the small man." Af­ter Man­ning's ad­dress, PNM chair­man Con­rad Enill told flag-bear­ing sup­port­ers, who spilled on­to the cor­ri­dor and aisles of the hall: "We have an elec­tion to win. Our par­ty is in elec­tion mode. Our work is not yet done. Let us go and get it done and win the elec­tion."