?If a disaster or sheer chaos had broken out in Marabella on Monday night, the police would not have been able to handle it.
Plain talk, bad manners! The Marabella police miscalculated the crowd which was going to attend the launch of the United National Congress (UNC) campaign at Gopaul Lands, Marabella, in the constituency of Pointe-a-Pierre. At 6 pm, there were fewer than 100 people at the venue, and most of them were media personnel, as CNC3 was preparing to go live from their new mobile unit. One hour later, as Dr Suruj Rambachan was preparing to get the night's proceedings under way, the car park at Gopaul Lands Shopping Complex was filled. By 8 pm, the crowd had grown so much that the police, headed by ASP Cecil Santana, closed off the road leading to Gopaul Lands. There was no room inside the car park, and the roadway and adjoining lot of land were filled with supporters and curious spectators. There was just a handful of police officers present, along with two armed soldiers. One of the policemen, when questioned, said they had miscalculated the impact of the UNC campaign launch. Had they known, they would have called for reinforcements in the event that an emergency occurred. The crowd was so thick that when UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar arrived, she had to be escorted from the Marabella roundabout to the large podium.
As the policeman put it, luckily there were no incidents. But it was clear that the large crowd came to hear what Persad-Bissessar had to offer. Roodal Moonilal was his usual fiery self, dealing with the issues, and asking the country if they want to put Patrick Manning back as Prime Minister. The surprise speaker was Ashworth Jack, political leader of the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP), who spoke of the need for Tobago to join with the UNC. Jack Warner, UNC chairman, tried to stay away from bacchanal. But he just could not resist, and then without warning, dropped calypsonian Crazy on the crowd. Crazy said it was Warner who wrote the lyrics and he was just singing, "Patrick Manning have to go."
Together with the Premala Dance Academy performers, Crazy thrilled the large crowd, enticing Gypsy, the UNC candidate for Mayaro, to join him in song. There was even the dance, imitating the blockage sign from San Juan pensioner, Percy Villafana, when Manning, during a walkabout, tried to enter his yard last month. The crowd loved it, with Warner promising to hand out 100,000 copies of the CD. Then the moment came when Persad-Bissessar took to the podium. A woman in the crowd said: "Look how nice she looking, like she get a make over in Miami." Persad-Bissessar was not the firebrand she had been before becoming UNC political leader. She threw no real punches, but as her colleagues would say: "It is early days yet.