Gail Alexan­der

To­day's march by trade union­ists, the Op­po­si­tion PNM and oth­er groups will be the biggest crowd seen since the 1970s, says PNM chair­man Franklin Khan. He said yes­ter­day all MPs and PNM?units had been mo­bilised to take part in what he said was a "na­tion­al front ef­fort."

He added: "It's not a PNM?march per se, al­though the PNM?and MSJ?are par­tic­i­pat­ing. It's more apo­lit­i­cal. But we are sup­port­ing this coali­tion that is stand­ing up for T&T's democ­ra­cy. "Some PNM units from dis­tant ar­eas are com­ing, via hired maxi taxis, and al­so among our pres­ence will be mem­bers of our ex­ec­u­tive elect­ed last Sun­day.

"We are join­ing this coali­tion ef­fort to send Gov­ern­ment a sig­nal on all the is­sues of con­cern so large num­bers are ex­pect­ed to­day." Neil Wil­son of To­ba­go PNM's unit said hun­dreds of To­bag­o­ni­ans were com­ing. New PNM?la­dy vice chair­man Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said the Women's League was go­ing to mo­bilise fe­male mem­bers to join the march.

MSJ?leader David Ab­du­lah, whose group has been lob­by­ing through­out T&T to height­en MSJ's pro­file, al­so said the march would be very large. Yes­ter­day Ab­du­lah spoke about the MSJ's po­si­tion on the up­com­ing THA elec­tions, say­ing the par­ty had not de­cid­ed on it.

"We will an­nounce our de­ci­sion on this at our up­com­ing con­gress and what­ev­er de­ci­sion that we take will be cog­nisant of the fact that To­ba­go is a spe­cial sit­u­a­tion and that MSJ?re­spects the right of To­bag­o­ni­ans to de­ter­mine their fu­ture. So what­ev­er de­ci­sion we take will be guid­ed by our com­mit­ment to that prin­ci­ple," he said.

For­mer COP?vice chair­man Ver­non de Li­ma said he would be present at the start­ing point of the march at Wood­ford Square but could not par­tic­i­pate in the en­tire march since he had a 3 pm High Court ap­point­ment.