Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar hold their fi­nal cam­paign ral­lies this af­ter­noon to woo vot­ers for Mon­day's gen­er­al elec­tion. Man­ning, po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), will con­vene his pub­lic po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, ti­tled Red Day, at the Ed­die Hart grounds in Tacarigua around noon. He will de­liv­er the fea­ture ad­dress. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC-led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, will launch her pub­lic po­lit­i­cal meet­ing–The Uni­ty and Lib­er­a­tion Ral­ly–at the Aranguez Sa­van­nah from 2 pm.

Speak­ers at the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's meet­ing will in­clude each po­lit­i­cal leader from its five-group coali­tion–Per­sad-Bisses­sar (Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress), Win­ston Dook­er­an (Con­gress of the Peo­ple), Er­rol McLeod (Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice), Ash­worth Jack (To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple) and Makan­dal Daa­ga (Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee). The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship unit­ed be­fore the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion to re­move Man­ning from of­fice. It was the first time in many years that the ma­jor Op­po­si­tion forces unit­ed against the PNM. Both Man­ning and Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be cul­mi­nat­ing more than five weeks elec­tion-cam­paign­ing, af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion date was an­nounced on April 16.

Man­ning ad­vised Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to dis­solve Par­lia­ment on April 15, which was less than 24-hours be­fore Per­sad-Bisses­sar was sched­uled to de­bate a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion against Man­ning in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Man­ning called an elec­tion mid­way in­to his term which was sched­uled to end in 2012. He will be seek­ing to boost his sup­port, as the PNM is suf­fer­ing from in­ter­nal cold war be­tween him and an­oth­er se­nior PNM mem­ber, Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Row­ley said that the next elec­tion would be the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (Ude­cott) elec­tion. He said John O'Hal­lo­ran had re­ced­ed in­to the back­ground. Row­ley stressed that there were oth­er names to be called.

Row­ley al­so made it clear that his po­lit­i­cal leader, Man­ning, was aware about con­cerns of cor­rup­tion oc­cur­ring at Ude­cott since 2003. Man­ning fired Row­ley from his Cab­i­net in 2008. Row­ley said that he was dis­missed af­ter mak­ing calls for bet­ter Cab­i­net over­sight of Ude­cott. Man­ning de­nied that Ude­cott was act­ing with­out ad­e­quate Cab­i­net over­sight and claimed that Row­ley was fired for be­hav­ing like a "wa­jang." Last month, the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­ves­ti­gat­ing Ude­cott and the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor rec­om­mend­ed crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Ude­cott's op­er­a­tions and its for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, Calder Hart.

Hart re­signed as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man af­ter a fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ship was al­leged­ly es­tab­lished be­tween his wife and a di­rec­tor in a firm that re­ceived more than $800 mil­lion in Ude­cott con­tracts. He flew out of Trinidad and To­ba­go and de­part­ed to Flori­da. It was re­port­ed that Man­ning and his Cab­i­net de­fend­ed Hart and Ude­cott no less than 45 times for the two-year pe­ri­od af­ter Row­ley's dis­missal. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the first fe­male prime-min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date to seek the post since T&T's in­de­pen­dence in 1962. Her bid to be­come Prime Min­is­ter came less than three months af­ter she be­came Op­po­si­tion Leader. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was sworn in as Op­po­si­tion Leader on Feb­ru­ary 24. One month ear­li­er, on Jan­u­ary 24, she won the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions to be­come the UNC's po­lit­i­cal leader. On both oc­ca­sions, she fought and beat her men­tor and gu­ru Bas­deo Pan­day for the posts.

Af­ter Pan­day suf­fered de­feat from Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the po­lit­i­cal and Op­po­si­tion leader posts, he opt­ed not to re­turn to the polls for the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. It will be the first time since 1976 that Pan­day will not con­test the Cou­va North seat that he has held for more than 33 years. Pan­day is among sev­en in­cum­bent UNC MPs who will not be re­turn­ing to the polls for Mon­day's elec­tion. Oth­ers in­clude Ramesh Ma­haraj (Tabaquite), Vas­ant Bharath (St Au­gus­tine), Mick­ela Pan­day (Oropouche West), Kelvin Ram­nath (Cou­va South), Hamza Rafeeq (Ca­roni Cen­tral), Sub­has Pan­day (Princes Town) and Har­ry Par­tap (To­co/Man­zanil­la).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was not the lone po­lit­i­cal leader to choose new can­di­dates for her 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion slate. Man­ning re­ject­ed at least of eight of his in­cum­bent PNM MPs. Among these in­clud­ed Pen­ne­lope Beck­les (Ari­ma), Gary Hunt (Port-of-Spain North), Roger Joseph (La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro), In­dra Sinanan Ojah-Ma­haraj (To­co/San­gre Grande), Pe­ter Tay­lor (Moru­ga/Table­land), An­tho­ny Roberts (St Ann's East) and Ren­nie Du­mas (To­ba­go East). PNM To­ba­go West in­cum­bent MP San­ford Cal­len­der re­signed from pol­i­tics and opt­ed not to re­con­test his seat. With two days be­fore the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion, at least 1,040,011 peo­ple are reg­is­tered to vote.