Op­po­si­tion MP?Colm Im­bert may not nec­es­sar­i­ly have been re­hears­ing for big­ger things in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives when he mo­men­tar­i­ly lost his cool yes­ter­day and bawled out Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's Gov­ern­ment's front bench.

"I?find it of­fen­sive when the Prime Min­is­ter will in­ter­rupt my con­tri­bu­tion; I?am hear­ing the mut­ter­ings of the Prime min­is­ter! But what is good for the goose is good for the gan­der! I ask all of them to be silent and let me fin­ish my pre­sen­ta­tion!" Im­bert loud­ly com­plained to House Speak­er Wade Mark. "(Buh) we lis­ten­ing to you...."?PP's Roodal Mooni­lal at­tempt­ed to paci­fy Im­bert.

Im­bert had been ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of be­ing lax in reg­u­lar­is­ing pri­vate school bus­es, yet "hus­tling to pro­claim Sec­tion 34."

The barb Im­bert tossed at Gov­ern­ment on the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 is­sue-which he worked it in­to yes­ter­day's House de­bate on tax­es-was a con­tin­u­a­tion of the thread the Op­po­si­tion has main­tained, even through­out re­cent bud­get de­bate. In­deed, po­lit­i­cal heat gen­er­at­ed in bud­get de­bate by myr­i­ad side­bar is­sues-al­leged cor­rup­tion, nepo­tism, racism, Sec­tion 34 con­dem­na­tion and To­ba­go rum­blings-didn't end with Wednes­day's Sen­ate con­clu­sion of the bud­get.

Speak­ing in Diego Mar­tin on Thurs­day night, PNM?leader Kei­th Row­ley con­tin­ued ham­mer­ing Gov­ern­ment with­out let-up, re­turn­ing fo­cus to the Sec­tion 34 is­sue which has giv­en life to his lead­er­ship and dealt the Gov­ern­ment sev­er­al body blows, though not fa­tal. (So far.)

For yes­ter­day af­ter­noon's House de­bate on cer­tain tax­es, Row­ley left most of the talk­ing to Im­bert who took Gov­ern­ment to task for be­ing soft on its stance to­wards the casi­no gam­bling sec­tor, yet hard, he said, on "poor mo­tor cy­clists..." (be­ing taxed again).

PNM and oth­er MPs, how­ev­er, may now be in prep mode for next Fri­day's Op­po­si­tion mo­tion of cen­sure against At­tor­ney?Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan on the Clause 34 is­sue. PNM?gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said the de­bate was on as far as he knew next Fri­day, Pri­vate Mem­bers day-Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion time.

Such ses­sion usu­al­ly end at 4.30 pm. Since that on­ly al­lows for about two speak­ers-one Op­po­si­tion and one Gov­ern­ment-on an is­sue, oth­er PNM?of­fi­cials said the PNM?has ap­proached Gov­ern­ment to have the de­bate "con­tin­ue to con­clu­sion." That is, to al­low as many speak­ers on the is­sue as each side wants.

That de­ci­sion lies sole­ly with PP?House leader-Roodal Mooni­lal-PNM?of­fi­cials said. Mooni­lal said yes­ter­day it was so far un­de­cid­ed whether de­bate would end at 4.30 pm. Sacked Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney who in­tends speak­ing in the de­bate said he would abide by arrange­ments Mooni­lal makes: "When­ev­er de­bate oc­curs, I'll speak,"?Vol­ney added.

As far as what he will re­veal on the is­sue and whether this will ex­on­er­ate him, Vol­ney said, "I'm al­ready ex­on­er­at­ed by the peo­ple," Re­gard­less of UNC?MP?Vol­ney's in­put, PP?House num­bers, 29 in to­tal, out­weigh the vote of PNM's 11 MPs on the is­sue. PNM?may have the last say on the mat­ter how­ev­er since Sec­tion 34 and oth­er is­sues will be the fo­cus of the ral­ly mount­ed by the PNM, MSJ and trade union forces on No­vem­ber 2, for Wood­ford Square.

PNM is cur­rent­ly gear­ing for next week­end's con­ven­tion and elec­tion of of­fi­cers at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah-site of NAR's first One Love ral­ly. The mo­men­tum from the con­ven­tion will like­ly flow in­to the No­vem­ber 2 ral­ly for which Row­ley on Thurs­day made a pitch for pub­lic and work­ers' sup­port.

Par­lia­ment is un­like­ly to be in force when the ral­ly takes place. The Sen­ate for in­stance, will not meet again un­til af­ter ?the No­vem­ber 12 Di­vali hol­i­day, PP?Sen­ate leader Gan­ga Singh said, since Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith is act­ing as head of state in the ab­sence of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards. The lat­ter re­turns next Tues­day.

Singh said Sen­ate vice pres­i­dent Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit who led the Sen­ate in?Hamel-Smith's ab­sence will be over­seas soon. When Ou­dit took breaks dur­ing last week's?Sen­ate bud­get de­bate, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor James Arm­strong act­ed as pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.

While the Op­po­si­tion con­tin­ues astride Sec­tion, 34, Gov­ern­ment is push­ing for­ward with its THA cam­paign fight, dou­bling its To­ba­go pres­ence in the Sen­ate, giv­ing air­fare re­bate con­ces­sions and mov­ing legal­ly against THA leader Orville Lon­don.

While cam­paign­ing for PNM's in­ter­nal elec­tion is tak­ing place be­low the radar, in the COP's cam­paign Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan is at­tempt­ing to counter opin­ion she may vi­o­late the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty eth­ic if she be­comes COP?chair­man. Seep­er­sad-Bachan is among can­di­dates who want to strength­en COP.

COP's Satu Ram­cha­ran con­test­ing the elec­tion of­fi­cer's post says COP's next lev­el is to be es­tab­lished as a ve­hi­cle ready to con­test elec­tions in all 41 con­stituen­cies, and pre­view it­self as a COP?Gov­ern­ment. Ram­cha­ran who says COP?"must nev­er again lim­it it­self and ac­cept sec­ond best", says COP is hitched to a PP Gov­ern­ment "we don't con­trol."

The move by Seep­er­sad-Bachan's ri­val, in­cum­bent Joseph Toney to re­turn the Cli­co le­gal brief may not nec­es­sar­i­ly in­crease his stocks since his step fol­lowed crit­i­cism of the sit­u­a­tion. It was nec­es­sary how­ev­er, giv­en his po­si­tion in a par­ty which prides it­self on its in­tegri­ty stance.