No friction between Rowley and Manning

Deputy political leader of the People’s National Movement (PNM) Marlene McDonald has insisted that there is no friction between the party’s leader, Dr Keith Rowley, and his predecessor, Patrick Manning. McDonald pointed to the fact that Rowley spent three hours last month with Manning after the former political leader fell ill and was taken to the San Fernando Hospital. “It was detractors who tried to make it an issue.”

She slammed the COP, stating they had lost their identity and believed that when the party’s vice chairman Vernon De Lima files his motion with an ultimatum today—that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar remove Warner from her Cabinet or else the COP would cut ties with the People’s Partnership coalition government—he may very well have to resign. “He (De Lima) will realise that he alone will be walking. There will be no one walking with him. Everybody else is eating a food.”

McDonald said the PP on the other hand had no vision after their 28 months in office and was governing the country by “voops, vaps and vikey-vai.” McDonald insisted to the media yesterday that there was no strained relationship between the two men after delivering the feature address at the Diego Martin Central 24th Annual Conference, in Cocorite, which saw a small turnout. She urged members of the constituency to put their differences behind and to remember the party had transitioned from Manning to Rowley.