Gail Alexan­der

Get a front row seat in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day!That's the hint from for­mer min­is­ter Jack Warn­er who doesn't want the par­lia­men­tary back­bench seat be­hind for­mer PNM leader Patrick Man­ning which the Gov­ern­ment plans for him.He said he prefers to sit next to fired min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney–di­rect­ly be­hind PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley.And he says half his ad­dress in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day in re­sponse to Row­ley's mo­tion against him would be aimed against Row­ley.

The oth­er part, he said, would de­tail the gen­e­sis of what has hap­pened to him–in­clud­ing why he quit as UNC chair­man–and "why I am where I am now."Asked if some may be aimed at the Gov­ern­ment, Warn­er cryp­ti­cal­ly said," Get a front row seat..."Warn­er, who re­signed as min­is­ter last Sun­day, re­mained silent when asked if any­one in the Gov­ern­ment should be ap­pre­hen­sive about what he had to say.

Warn­er was con­tact­ed yes­ter­day about his state­ment that the cat­a­lyst for his res­ig­na­tion was the Prime Min­is­ter's re­mark that she was "stunned" by the re­cent­ly-re­leased Con­ca­caf re­port. This crit­i­cised Warn­er's man­age­ment of Con­ca­caf af­fairs, al­leg­ing it was "fraud­u­lent."He was al­so asked about his view of a "con­cert­ed ef­fort by peo­ple and agen­cies out to get him" and if that in­clud­ed any­one in the Gov­ern­ment.

Warn­er replied: "I'll deal with every­thing Fri­day. I owe it to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to ex­plain what has hap­pened to me. I have no pre­tence or an­i­mos­i­ty against any­body. I'm on no course of vengeance. All I want is for the pop­u­la­tion to know what tran­spired. Even Jack's de­trac­tors, if they're ob­jec­tive, will then say, this isn't re­al­ly the way things are done."

Warn­er said if he had his way he wouldn't sit on the last seat of the PP back­bench–be­hind Man­ning–which was se­lect­ed for him.He said he planned to write the House Speak­er in­di­cat­ing he wants to sit fur­ther up the back­bench next to Vol­ney."Right be­hind Row­ley, so when I'm talk­ing it'll be aimed at him," Warn­er added.Asked if he would step down as Ch­agua­nas West MP, he said: "Time will tell."

Warn­er meets to­mor­row night–the eve of the de­bate–with Pierre Road con­stituents "to ac­count to them."He said: "I've said I don't want any 'Bring Back Jack' cam­paign, but if they want to come to Par­lia­ment Fri­day, they can come. I have noth­ing crit­i­cal or ob­jec­tion­able to say against the par­ty, it's done me noth­ing, but I must ac­count to peo­ple."

Mooni­lal:Warn­er no longera min­is­ter

PP House leader Roodal Mooni­lal said Warn­er was al­lo­cat­ed the last seat on the PP back­bench as he's not a min­is­ter or par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary.If Warn­er want­ed to sit next to Vol­ney, how­ev­er, Mooni­lal said, "That's his choice."Mooni­lal said Warn­er hadn't in­di­cat­ed he didn't want to be un­der the PP whip.He added that the Gov­ern­ment ex­pect­ed Warn­er would de­fend his name in Fri­day's de­bate and he was sure Warn­er would "have a strong state­ment on some mat­ters raised on the mo­tion."

On about Warn­er's re­port­ed state­ments, Mooni­lal said the im­me­di­ate af­ter­math of leav­ing Cab­i­net was an emo­tion­al­ly dif­fi­cult time and he was sure there'd be clar­i­ty soon.He said: "He's been un­der stress so we shouldn't over­re­act or cast judg­ment. These things usu­al­ly plateau out. Jack has a per­son­al­i­ty that won't be sup­pressed but he's a very loy­al mem­ber with great re­spect and loy­al­ty for the Prime Min­is­ter."