(Trinidad Express) The election date is still in Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s backpocket.
At the PNM campaign launch at Hi-Lo’s St Augustine car park last night, Manning, who described himself as the ’most vilified Prime Minister that this country has ever seen’, disappointed all those – including his own supporters – who came expecting to hear an election date.
’I don’t want to overdo it, there will be many more nights,’ he said, as he wrapped up a speech, which did not have the campaign fire of his address two weeks ago at Chaguaramas. The Prime Minister, who was introduced to the same campaign song of the 2007 election – Preacher’s ’Steppin Up’ – and Tertiary Education Minister Christine Kangaloo both contended that the COP/UNC alliance was a reincarnation of the NAR. Manning took his audience down memory lane of what the PNM did and contrasted that with what happened under the NAR administration.
Predicting that social programmes such as CEPEP and GATE would be stopped under the UNC/COP, Manning said, ’They (NAR) huff cost of living and 10 per cent of public servants salary.’
As he said one could expect the same policies under a UNC/COP alliance, he advised the 10,000 OJT beneficiaries, ’you have to protect your position and vote for the PNM’, because they would ’huff’ OJT as well.
The campaign heat came from two ladies. One ’near and dear’ to Manning’s heart – Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, who the PM, dispelling rumours, pointed out “don’t live in the Hyatt, she living home by me.” The other lady was Kangaloo, the Pointe-a-Pierre candidate.
Kangaloo said the population had an easy choice. On other hand, there was a stable party with 54 years of unbroken service and on the other a “corpse” and “a snake which feel that because it shed its old skin the other day, the people can’t tell it is a snake.”
“A cadaver and a snake lying down on a political bed for the 100th time … We walk that road already and we not going down that hole again. Jack and his friends have plenty eats for that wedding tonight. But they better make sure that they have something left over for the wake tomorrow,” she said, causing an uproar. “As night follows day a unity funeral coming,” she said.
She warned the people that the UNC/COP alliance was “guaranteed to collapse” and was licking its lips now that Trinidad and Tobago was “nice and plump again.”
“Put garlic on your doors, time to light your chalice and keep it smoking because vampire passing,” she said.
Kangaloo, who is Tertiary Education Minister, spoke of programmes such as GATE, HYPE and MuST, noting that US President Barack Obama “was bussing his head trying to make tertiary education affordable… He under plenty stress … It so simple for President Obama to solve the problem … All he has to do is join the PNM,” she said to the cheering crowds.
Earlier, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning said that while some people were “doubtful … confused and questioning” the decision to call a general election, the PNM was going for another mandate to take the country to a higher level. Stressing that the country was at a critical crossroads, she said the PNM’s detractors were “ruthlessly monopolising the public information space to put us in this country on a journey of spite and hate.”
