Sascha Wil­son

For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning will march in­stead of walk to­day, the cul­mi­na­tion of his sev­en-day protest from Port- of-Spain to San Fer­nan­do against his sus­pen­sion from Par­lia­ment al­most two weeks ago. Un­der over­cast skies yes­ter­day, Man­ning led scores of sup­port­ers in a 5.7 mile walk from the Clax­ton Bay fly­over to Tarou­ba Link Road as he com­plet­ed the sixth leg of the his "walk for jus­tice." Com­plet­ing yes­ter­day's walk in one hour and 32 min­utes, the San Fer­nan­do East par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive said to­day's walk will take on a dif­fer­ent for­mat. "We will be do­ing a march in­stead of a walk," he said, adding that he was told that there will al­so be a mu­sic truck. "I don't know what they mean by that," he added.

He said the march, which cov­ers a dis­tance of 3.2 miles, is ex­pect­ed to be­gin at 5 pm to­day, at Tarou­ba, pro­ceed­ing along the Na­pari­ma-Ma­yaro Road and cul­mi­nat­ing at Har­ris Prom­e­nade. Man­ning, who was sus­pend­ed by the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee of the House for al­le­ga­tions he made about Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's pri­vate res­i­dence in South Trinidad, un­der­took his walk from the Red House in Port-of-Spain last Wednes­day. Thank­ing those who sup­port­ed him over the last six days, he said, "I want to thank you all who sac­ri­ficed to be here with us in this long walk. Noth­ing that is of val­ue isn't worth fight­ing for."

Al­so ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers, for­mer par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ralph Maraj said no­body had the sta­mi­na, the courage, had the re­silience to do what Man­ning had done over the last six days, "demon­strat­ing in a very sym­bol­ic way the kind of qual­i­ty we have, the kind of qual­i­ty we need in our lead­ers." He said they were grow­ing stronger while "things are falling apart in that area." Among his sup­port­ers were for­mer min­is­ters Gary Hunt, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Lau­rel Leza­ma and for­mer sen­a­tor Joel Primus.