Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) chair­man Jack Warn­er says he re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning plans to pro­rogue Par­lia­ment this week and call a gen­er­al elec­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Warn­er said it was brought to his at­ten­tion that Man­ning in­tend­ed to pro­rogue Par­lia­ment at the next sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, on Fri­day. He spec­u­lat­ed that a gen­er­al elec­tion would be held in Trinidad and To­ba­go on ei­ther May 17 or May 24. "(I am be­ing told) that it (Par­lia­ment) will be pro­rogued on the ninth (of April) and that he (Man­ning) would move to Wood­ford Square and be­gin his cam­paign," Warn­er said in a tele­phone in­ter­view. "That is what the ground is say­ing. Yes!" At the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) spe­cial con­ven­tion over the week­end, Man­ning had an­nounced that the PNM would be­gin screen­ing can­di­dates on April 7 for a gen­er­al elec­tion. Screen­ing starts on Wednes­day in his San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy.

Man­ning al­so said the PNM had made an ap­pli­ca­tion to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice James Philbert to march in Port-of-Spain on Fri­day, the day the Op­po­si­tion has pro­posed to file the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in him in the Par­lia­ment. Warn­er said it was in­di­cat­ed to him that Man­ning want­ed to pre-empt the mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar would bring for­ward against him in the Par­lia­ment. "That is what the ground is say­ing, and if he is sen­si­ble, he will call it (a gen­er­al elec­tion), be­cause when we un­leash what we have to un­leash in Par­lia­ment...," Warn­er said. "At the end of the day, Mr Man­ning is car­ry­ing this coun­try down­hill very fast, and if we do not stop him we will be very sor­ry af­ter­wards." Calls to Row­ley went unan­swered yes­ter­day, but in an in­ter­view last month Row­ley had said the gov­ern­ment's be­hav­iour was invit­ing a mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence to be brought against the Prime Min­is­ter in the Par­lia­ment.

Row­ley has suf­fered re­peat­ed crit­i­cisms from the Prime Min­is­ter since he raised con­cerns about the op­er­a­tions at state-en­ter­prise, the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd. He added that the anger ex­pe­ri­enced from Trinidad and To­ba­go's pop­u­la­tion would not be duped from Man­ning's re­cent at­tempts to be­come more peo­ple-ori­ent­ed. "I want to say to Mr Man­ning, whether he wants to build ten hos­pi­tals in ten weeks, or whether he wants to tem­per the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Bill that he has passed or the prop­er­ty tax leg­is­la­tion that he has al­so passed, which were very good (to him), which were up to this week were the best thing since sliced bread, it would not fool the peo­ple." Warn­er said a gen­er­al elec­tion would be "the best thing for the coun­try" to vote out Man­ning. "This coun­try is an an­gry coun­try. Peo­ple are an­gry....This coun­try can­not take it any­more." The Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Colm Im­bert de­clined com­ments yes­ter­day on Warn­er's state­ments. Calls to PNM chair­man Con­rad Enill went unan­swered.