Gail Alexan­der

For­mer Con­gress of the Peo­ple?vice-chair­man Ver­non de Li­ma and Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre mem­bers are ex­pect­ed to join to­day's Op­po­si­tion march which will call for the res­ig­na­tions of At­tor­ney?Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney. The protest march will un­der­score PNM con­cerns about the re­cent is­sue of the con­tro­ver­sial Clause 34, which was re­pealed in emer­gency sit­tings of Par­lia­ment last week. PN­Mites in the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es sup­port­ed the re­peal. Sub­se­quent­ly, last Sun­day, PNM?leader Kei­th Row­ley said the Op­po­si­tion was still con­cerned about the "se­cret"?procla­ma­tion of the clause on Au­gust 31. Row­ley said the PNM?planned to cir­cu­late a pe­ti­tion on it, which mem­bers would take on to­day's march to Pres­i­dent's House. He called for those af­fect­ed or an­gered by the is­sue to join, in­clud­ing trade unions. Yes­ter­day, PNM?vice chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said the PNM ap­plied ear­ly yes­ter­day for po­lice per­mis­sion for the march. The par­ty was still await­ing ap­proval up to 5 pm yes­ter­day. Po­lice of­fi­cials con­firmed re­ceiv­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion. Robin­son-Reg­is said: " We be­lieve we'll get per­mis­sion since the route isn't a con­vo­lut­ed route," she added. PNM?chair­man Franklin Khan said the PNM's ob­jec­tive was the res­ig­na­tion of Ram­lo­gan and Vol­ney, who he said were key in the is­sue. Ram­lo­gan lead last week's de­bate. Vol­ney had said he moved to ob­tain procla­ma­tion of the clause.

Khan said the PNM vot­ed for re­peal of the clause since that was the on­ly op­tion for Par­lia­ment. But he said through­out last week's de­bate PNM?mem­bers ex­pressed con­cern about the "se­cret" procla­ma­tion of the sec­tion. COP's de Li­ma, an at­tor­ney, said he had to at­tend a case in San Fer­nan­do this morn­ing. "But once I?re­turn to north in time, I?shall be most present at the march,"? De Li­ma said. COP?pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Ma­hen­dra Dhani­ram said he was un­sure if oth­er COP mem­bers were at­tend­ing. He said he sus­pect­ed the par­ty would dis­cuss the Clause 34 is­sue, among oth­ers, at its ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing. For­mer coali­tion part­ner, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) was dis­cussing its par­tic­i­pa­tion at a meet­ing last evening, MSJ?leader David Ab­du­lah said. Natuc pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette - a for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor-who said the re­cent Par­lia­ment de­bate did not ad­dress the rea­son for the haste in pro­claim­ing sec­tion 34 said: "NATUC wish­es to re­it­er­ate our prin­ci­pled po­si­tion of main­tain­ing our in­de­pen­dence as the ma­jor­i­ty recog­nised Trade Union Fed­er­a­tion by not align­ing it­self to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or re­spond­ing to any calls by any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, which may be con­strued as align­ment to a po­lit­i­cal par­ty." "How­ev­er, NATUC re­spects the rights of its mem­bers to re­spond to any calls by any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. This stance is tak­en with the clear un­der­stand­ing that NATUC rep­re­sents trade unions and its mem­bers across the po­lit­i­cal di­vide."

An­nisette said Natuc want­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to deal with the mat­ter ur­gent­ly to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence and faith in the Par­lia­men­tary process and "take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion against those found want­i­ng." Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union's Vin­cent Cabr­era said while he per­son­al­ly sup­port­ed the idea of the march, his com­rades said Row­ley hadn't con­sult­ed with them and the in­vi­ta­tion is­sued by Row­ley last Sun­day was too short to or­gan­ise mem­bers' par­tic­i­pa­tion. The march be­gins at 1 pm out­side the Red House on Aber­crom­by Street. Par­tic­i­pants will walk north up Aber­crom­by Street, in­to Gor­don Street, Keate Street and around NA­PA on­to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and then to Pres­i­dent's House. Khan said the pe­ti­tion will be sub­mitt­ted and Row­ley will ad­dress marchers there. PNM? con­stituen­cies were mo­bil­is­ing to par­tic­i­pate, sev­er­al units con­firmed. This in­clud­ed MP?Patrick Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy. Abi­gail Cox of that unit's of­fice said mem­bers will par­tic­i­pate. Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed said of the PNM's move, "We un­der­stand they're plan­ning a strong show­ing in sup­port of their leader, but the PNM is sim­ply do­ing this to pro­voke a re­ac­tion. "They sup­port­ed re­peal of the leg­is­la­tion. But peo­ple have the free­dom to lodge their protest as they may with­in the law. It' s a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try."