Yvonne Ba­boolal

Limp­ing and thin­ner but look­ing strong, for­mer prime min­is­ter and San Fer­nan­do East MP Patrick Man­ning re­turned to Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day af­ter a two-year ex­tend­ed sick leave.With his wife Hazel at his side, Man­ning was greet­ed at the en­trance to Par­lia­ment, Tow­er D, Port-of-Spain Wa­ter­front by a small group, com­pris­ing most­ly of women, wear­ing red Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) jer­seys with his name print­ed on the front.

Kirk Wait­he of Fix­in' T&T and two or three pro­test­ers stood near­by with plac­ards call­ing for an im­me­di­ate gen­er­al elec­tion.Man­ning, who suf­fered a stroke in Jan­u­ary 2012, did not speak to mem­bers of the me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment but went straight in­side, lift­ing his left foot and drop­ping it as he walked with much ef­fort."Al­lyuh see about him eh," a sup­port­er, pok­ing her head in­side the door, told po­lice in the lob­by.

A round of desk-thump­ing from the PNM bench­es greet­ed him as he en­tered the cham­ber min­utes be­fore the 1.30 pm ses­sion be­gan. Man­ning made his way to the last seat on the Op­po­si­tion's front bench, his old seat, next to an emo­tion­al Arou­ca South MP Ali­cia Hospedales.There were re­ports he would oc­cu­py a new seat, be­hind Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald at the top of the bench.

Speak­er Wade Mark wel­comed Man­ning back at the start of the pro­ceed­ings. Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal did the same."I think we all agree it's show­time," Mooni­lal said, in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to Row­ley's lead­er­ship slo­gan, "Show­time, Dr Row­ley for leader."Lat­er dur­ing the ses­sion, Row­ley wel­comed Man­ning back, say­ing that he "had some very sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, which he has fought and is still fight­ing, and we wish he will con­tin­ue to im­prove and get back to nor­mal­cy as quick­ly as pos­si­ble."

Row­ley said the Op­po­si­tion was hap­py to have its full com­ple­ment to con­tin­ue in the ser­vice of the coun­try. With Man­ning's re­turn, the PNM now has 13 MPs, which in­clud­ed St Joseph MP Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, who won the by-elec­tion in No­vem­ber.

Af­ter a hec­tic round of ques­tions on con­tro­ver­sial is­sues such as the $6.8 mil­lion firetruck fi­as­co, the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar fam­i­ly day host­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice for Laven­tille res­i­dents at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, and the award of ques­tion­able schol­ar­ships, Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts led off the de­bate on the Bail Amend­ment Bill.Roberts told Man­ning he came back look­ing strong like West In­dies crick­eter Kieron Pol­lard."I could put you in a game and you could hit a lit­tle six. I hope you could take a lit­tle licks too."

He al­so men­tioned the tim­ing of Man­ning's re­turn and agreed it was "show­time in the PNM."Delv­ing in­to his con­tri­bu­tion, Roberts said his moth­er al­ways taught him to put God first but ques­tioned the pri­or­i­ties of the last ad­min­is­tra­tion presided over by Man­ning.Man­ning suf­fered a stroke in Jan­u­ary 2012 and went through treat­ment and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion in the Unit­ed States.On Wednes­day, via so­cial me­dia, Man­ning an­nounced his re­turn by say­ing, "Back to work. See you in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day."