Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

There is no need to be a prophet­ess to dis­cov­er that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was los­ing some­thing oth­er than Trinidad and To­ba­go's next elec­tions, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar charged last night.

She said Man­ning's bizarre in­ter­ven­tion in the pro­ceed­ings of the House last Fri­day was a clear in­di­ca­tion of his feel­ing of in­se­cu­ri­ty and des­per­a­tion at this point of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer at this par­tic­u­lar time. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "Good­will has dri­ven fear in­to the heart of Man­ning." She ac­cused him of at­tempt­ing to cre­ate re­li­gious strife in T&T rather than ad­dress­ing con­cerns about his in­volve­ment in a con­tro­ver­sial church–The Light of the Light­house of the Lord Je­sus Christ. "We want Mr Man­ning to lose the elec­tion but he seems to be los­ing some­thing else. You do not have to be a prophet­ess to know that," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

"But he must nev­er be al­lowed to use this is­sue to cre­ate re­li­gious di­vi­sion in our coun­try," she said. She added, "He must nev­er be al­lowed to set up smoke­screens or in­sult our in­tel­li­gence while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly at­tempt­ing to cre­ate re­li­gious strife in a coun­try that has ab­solute­ly no place for re­li­gious con­flict or re­li­gious big­otry." Per­sad-Bisses­sar was speak­ing at last night's Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Meet the Con­stituents Tour at the St Michael's An­gli­can Church, Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard, Diego Mar­tin.

She was re­fer­ring to the con­tro­ver­sial con­struc­tion of a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tion at the Heights of Gua­napo for The Light of the Light­house of the Lord Je­sus Christ, which was lead by Ju­liana De­venish, the Prime Min­is­ter's spir­i­tu­al ad­vis­er. She warned Man­ning he was not rul­ing by di­vine right and that as Prime Min­is­ter he was ac­count­able to the peo­ple.