Ali­cia Llanos

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning says May 24 has spe­cial mean­ing to him.

Man­ning was speak­ing yes­ter­day af­ter leav­ing a screen­ing com­mit­tee meet­ing at the Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain. In re­sponse to ques­tions about the May 24 elec­tion date, Man­ning said: "In 1971, I joined the PNM. "Elec­tions were called on May 24 and we won 36 seats."

He said ac­cord­ing to pro­to­col the elec­tion date was usu­al­ly an­nounced in Par­lia­ment. He said since there was no Par­lia­ment the date was an­nounced via me­dia re­leas­es, which, he added, al­so was done by ANR Robin­son in 1991.

Man­ning was asked whether he con­sid­ered the pro­vi­sions of the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CXC) head­quar­ters, that said no elec­tions should be held dur­ing the ex­ams, he re­spond­ed: "There is no rule that says when you can and can­not hold an elec­tion." When asked as to whether he was con­cerned an elec­tion would dis­rupt the ex­am­i­na­tions he said: "Any date you pick will dis­rupt some­thing. "You can't have a func­tion­ing so­ci­ety with­out some sort of dis­rup­tion." On Thurs­day Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Es­ter Le Gen­dre said an elec­tion would not af­fect the ex­am­i­na­tions. The elec­tion date, May 24, was called yes­ter­day and falls in the mid­dle of CXC ex­ams, which are sched­uled to start on April 26 and end June 11.