Sascha Wil­son

Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing is plead­ing with the pop­u­la­tion to for­give for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning for mis­takes he owns up to, but not to for­get them. Speak­ing on i95.5 FM, Lee Sing said, "In tak­ing the ac­tion he (Man­ning) took, he af­fect­ed the lives of so many thou­sand Trinida­di­ans. I don't even be­lieve he un­der­stood the im­pact of what I con­sid­er to be a rather reck­less de­ci­sion to call an elec­tion at two years and four months in­to a (5-year)term, could have had on the pop­u­la­tion. "I urge the pop­u­la­tion to for­give him, but we must nev­er for­get what he has done be­cause we are like­ly to make the same mis­takes if we for­get. We will for­give him, but we will not for­get." He said Man­ning had served well dur­ing his 40-year tenure but it is time that he make prepa­ra­tions to step down.

"Do the work like any ded­i­cat­ed and loy­al par­ty mem­ber. Mr Man­ning must now, hav­ing made his peace with the pop­u­la­tion, set a clear date for his de­par­ture from pol­i­tics." Lee Sing said it may not be strate­gi­cal­ly wise to have a bye-elec­tion at this time, but peo­ple should ex­pect Man­ning to per­form as a mem­ber of par­lia­ment in and out of Par­lia­ment. He said, more im­por­tant­ly, they ex­pect him to pre­pare a suc­ces­sor so when the bell rings for the next elec­tion they re­claim the San Fer­nan­do East seat. He al­so urged the pop­u­la­tion to not for­get the im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions Man­ning would have made to the na­tion. At a news con­fer­ence at his con­stituen­cy of­fice in San Fer­nan­do on Fri­day, Man­ning apol­o­gised for his er­rors while in of­fice say­ing that he is not per­fect. He an­nounced, al­so, his in­ten­tion to de­part pol­i­tics af­ter 40 years' ser­vice.