No one ex­pect­ed it so soon, but af­ter 39 years in ac­tive pol­i­tics for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning brought the cur­tain down on his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer on Wednes­day–ex­act­ly three days af­ter he led the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment to a gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat. De­spite this de­feat, Man­ning made his mark in pol­i­tics, a ca­reer he em­barked on at the ten­der age of 24, lead­ing him to hold the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter on four oc­ca­sions. Sun­day Guardian re­flects on the life of a man that took the PNM from its record dev­as­tat­ing 33-3 de­feat in 1986, back in­to Gov­ern­ment again, be­fore tak­ing yet an­oth­er gam­ble and los­ing the bat­tle on May 24 to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Bi­og­ra­phy

1. 1946 - Born in San Fer­nan­do

2. Mar­ried to Hazel Man­ning. The cou­ple share two sons–Bri­an and David.

3. At­tained his pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion in south Trinidad, fol­lowed by his BSc De­gree (Spe­cial Ho­n­ours) in Ge­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona, Ja­maica.

4. 1971 - em­barked on his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

5. Longest serv­ing MP to date, win­ning his San Fer­nan­do East seat on 11 oc­ca­sions.

6. 1981 - He first be­came a Min­is­ter in hold­ing the In­dus­try and Com­merce, and In­for­ma­tion port­fo­lios.

7. 1981 to 1986 - served as Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and Nat­ur­al Re­sources.

8. 1986 - Man­ning was one of three PNM can­di­dates to re­tain his seat in the crush­ing 33-3 de­feat. He be­came the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and with­in two months was elect­ed as Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM.

9. 1987 - elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.

10. 1995-2001 - Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. Man­ning's gam­ble back­fired when he opt­ed to call a gen­er­al elec­tion be­fore time and saw a dead­lock be­tween the PNM and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) both se­cur­ing 17 seats. The Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) won the two To­ba­go seats and joined forced with UNC to form the gov­ern­ment.

11. 2001 - then At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, broke ranks from the UNC caus­ing cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions to sur­face. The par­ty col­lapsed. The UNC called a snap gen­er­al elec­tion in that year end­ing in an 18-18 dead­lock. For­mer Pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the PNM and se­lect­ed the par­ty to form the next gov­ern­ment.

12. 2007 - The PNM elect­ed in­to Gov­ern­ment.

13. 2008 - Fired Diego Mar­tin West MP from the Cab­i­net af­ter he raised cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions against the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T.

14. 2010 - PNM de­feat­ed at the polls. Steps down as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.

RIGHT: Patrick Man­ning

Some of his achieve­ments

1. 2003 - award­ed the Guyana In­sti­tute for Democ­ra­cy "Democ­ra­cy Prize" for his out­stand­ing work in up­hold­ing the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy in the Caribbean re­gion.

2. 2004 - re­ceived the Caribbean-Cen­tral Amer­i­can Ac­tion's "Star of the Caribbean Award", for his un­wa­ver­ing sup­port of Caribbean neigh­bours in their time of dis­tress.

3. 2007 - Medgar Evers Col­lege of Brook­lyn New York con­ferred on him the Doc­tor of Laws de­gree Hon­oris Causa in recog­ni­tion in pub­lic ser­vice.

Plans to­wards de­vel­op­ment of T&T

1. TT dol­lar was un­pegged from the US dol­lar.

2. Mon­etis­ing gas and es­tab­lish­ment of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T.

3. Im­ple­ment­ed the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (Gate) which formed part of his Vi­sion 20/20 plan.

–re­port­ing by Malis­sa Lara