An­ge­lo Mar­celle

De­f­i­n­i­tion of Pi­cong (Fa­tigue): light com­i­cal ban­ter, usu­al­ly at some­one else's ex­pense. Trini­bag­o­ni­ans heck­le and mock each oth­er in a friend­ly man­ner. How­ev­er, the line be­tween hu­mour and in­sult is fine and con­stant­ly shift­ing, and at times the con­vivial spir­it may de­gen­er­ate in­to more heat­ed de­bate and per­haps, phys­i­cal al­ter­ca­tions.

Elec­tion time in T&T is al­ways stress­ful and anx­i­ety lev­els are usu­al­ly at an all-time high. What is al­so syn­ony­mous with elec­tion cam­paigns is the po­lit­i­cal pi­cong that can­di­dates use as a means of get­ting their point across or to make their op­po­nents seem in­com­pe­tent or un­wor­thy of gov­ern­ing the coun­try.

Ten items of pi­cong on the hus­tings:

1 Po­lit­i­cal Franken­stein: Amery Browne call­ing the uni­fi­ca­tion of the op­po­si­tion par­ties a mon­ster at the PNM meet­ing held in Man­zanil­la. He went on the re­quest that peo­ple not be fooled if the op­po­si­tion puts lip­stick on Franken­stein to make it look pre­sentable.

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2 Po­lit­i­cal Has Beens: Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning used the term in ref­er­ence to the draft­ing of Makan­dal Daa­ga, Er­rol Mcleod and all can­di­dates of the unit­ed par­ty who have not been in ac­tive po­lit­i­cal life for a long time.

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3 Po­lit­i­cal Mis­chief: Tim Goopesingh, when the win­dows of his car were dam­aged, said: "I hope is was not 'po­lit­i­cal mis­chief'."

4 Ba­by Man­ning: Roodal Mooni­lal re­ferred as such to Bri­an Man­ning, son of Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, at the UN­COP meet­ing at Fyz­abad, on Wednes­day, April 21.

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5 Patrick "Mu­gabe" Man­ning: Coun­cil­lor Clifton De Coteau us­ing the term to re­fer to PM Patrick Man­ning as a dic­ta­tor.

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6 Po­lit­i­cal Ceme­tery: The term has been used to re­fer to peo­ple whose po­lit­i­cal time has passed.

7 Wake: Ru­di Mooni­lal called the PNM meet­ing in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la a wake.

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8 Patrick Au­gus­tus Mervyn Calder Hart Man­ning: COP can­di­date Anil Roberts re-chris­tened Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, in ref­er­ence to the ap­par­ent bond shared by Man­ning and Calder Hart.

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9 Rap­ing the trea­sury: Anil Roberts in­ferred that Calder Hart had his way with the na­tion's trea­sury.

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10 Chair­men: Anil Roberts used the term in ref­er­ence to De­vanand Ram­lal, he was the chair­man of many com­pa­nies–the most con­tro­ver­sial res­ig­na­tion be­ing his post as chair­man of the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion on Oc­to­ber 8, 2008.