Is Patrick Man­ning for re­al? Is he suf­fer­ing from po­lit­i­cal mega­lo­ma­nia and which has re­sult­ed in po­lit­i­cal am­ne­sia and he doesn't re­alise that he has been de­throned for the last 15 months? Last time I checked, Dr Kei­th Row­ley was the in­cum­bent po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM and the Op­po­si­tion Leader. On what premise is Man­ning guid­ed by to hold press con­fer­ences so fre­quent­ly? Sat­ur­day's was his third. I would like those peo­ple who are elect­ed Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to en­light­en us as to if this is a new cus­tom in T&T or some­thing adopt­ed from the House of Com­mons? I can­not re­call any mem­ber of Par­lia­ment hold­ing week­ly press con­fer­ences to ad­dress na­tion­al is­sues and more­over the per­for­mance of the Gov­ern­ment. While we live in a roar­ing democ­ra­cy, we still op­er­ate with­in perime­ters and do have de­mar­ca­tions un­der the um­brel­la of "cus­toms and tra­di­tions." These are things that are not etched in law nor are edicts. Af­ter all, we do claim to pat­tern a West­min­ster sys­tem of gov­er­nance.

It would ap­pear from all ac­counts that Man­ning has been un­able to swal­low and thor­ough­ly di­gest the pills of "elec­toral de­feat" and from be­ing Prime Min­is­ter to "prime un­der­dog." It is un­be­liev­able, sur­re­al and ab­solute­ly stun­ning to hear Man­ning call­ing on the present regime to call a gen­er­al elec­tion be­cause, ac­cord­ing to him, the state of emer­gency was a fail­ure. I am not a sta­tis­ti­cian or a le­gal ex­pert but you don't have to be a whiz to see that be­tween the end of Au­gust and No­vem­ber 6 the mur­der rate bare­ly reached ten. Un­der Man­ning's ad­min­is­tra­tion (2002-May 2010), I re­call the mur­der rate be­ing around 3,000. In 2008 and 2009 there were over 1,000 mur­ders. We are an is­land with 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple. When for­eign­ers hear such hor­ren­dous sta­tis­tics and grue­some mur­ders they feel that we are a bar­bar­ic so­ci­ety. In 2003, Man­ning was faced with an up­surge of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty (bomb in Port-of-Spain, kid­nap­pings, mur­ders and rob­beries). The Ken Gor­don Crime Com­mit­tee had de­vel­oped a 21-point plan to help an­ni­hi­late the scourge of crime. One of those rec­om­men­da­tions called for a state of emer­gency when the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty had se­ri­ous­ly height­ened over a very short space of time. Man­ning and for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph failed to act.

Man­ning needs to face re­al­i­ty: he is now a po­lit­i­cal ghost. His po­lit­i­cal life ex­pired on the night of May 24, 2010. His po­lit­i­cal fu­ner­al was at­tend­ed by many who went to Bal­isi­er House to see him ride off in­to the clouds. He has served his coun­try as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for over 40 years. He cul­mi­nat­ed his ca­reer by apol­o­gis­ing for all his mis­deeds and short­com­ings last month-his first press con­fer­ence. The most fit­ting thing now is for him to sub­mit his res­ig­na­tion and leave silent­ly with what­ev­er resid­ual dig­ni­ty he has left. It is time he clos­es the chap­ters in this book and opens a new one.

Hy­acinth Teles­ford-Rhed­dock

Trinci­ty