Kim­ber­ly Makhan

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was ac­cused of pro­vok­ing Op­po­si­tion MPs af­ter he used yes­ter­day's de­bate in the Low­er House to poke fun at both win­ners and losers in the re­cent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in­ter­nal elec­tions. "To my good friend, the mem­ber for Cou­va North (Bas­deo Pan­day), I think that he has made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try's de­vel­op­ment and at some ap­pro­pri­ate time I hope that the Par­lia­ment would recog­nise it," Man­ning said in yes­ter­day af­ter­noon's de­bate in the Low­er House. He re­ceived an im­me­di­ate in­ter­jec­tion from Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day, who said: "I don't in­tend to die just yet." Man­ning quipped that it was not his in­ten­tion to im­pute that Pan­day was fac­ing death.

"I was very care­ful in my choice of words, Mr Speak­er, not to sug­gest that my friend was dead, dy­ing or in any stage that was sug­gest­ing that he was not in full con­trol of all his fac­ul­ties," Man­ning re­spond­ed. Man­ning added that recog­ni­tion should al­so be made to Tabaquite MP, Ramesh Ma­haraj, "on his con­tri­bu­tion to the par­lia­men­tary life of the coun­try. Ma­haraj re­tort­ed: "Like all of you think I leav­ing?" Man­ning pro­ceed­ed to con­grat­u­late Siparia MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her suc­cess in the fight for UNC po­lit­i­cal leader. "I would like to con­grat­u­late her on as­cend­ing to the ranks of po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship in the coun­try and to wish her well in her fu­ture en­deav­ours," Man­ning said.

He al­so bade good wish­es to Ch­agua­nas West MP, Jack Warn­er, on be­com­ing the new UNC chair­man and Op­po­si­tion chief whip. He al­so de­scribed Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, as some­one "who dis­tin­guished him­self on be­ing the lone sur­vivor of the par­tic­u­lar team" of can­di­dates that he was a part of for the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions. "He has done very well," Man­ning said. His con­tri­bu­tion be­came in­ter­rupt­ed by Princes Town South MP, Sub­has Pan­day, who ac­cused Man­ning of pro­vok­ing Op­po­si­tion MPs. "That is provo­ca­tion," shout­ed Sub­has Pan­day. Man­ning dis­missed the sug­ges­tions.