Political analysts are not ruling out a return of former prime minister Patrick Manning as opposition leader. Following rumours and a poster circulating on Facebook that six opposition MPs were waiting to sign a letter to have President Anthony Carmona replace Rowley with Manning, Dr Bishnu Ragoonath said speculation alone should concern the party heading into the 2015 general election.
Last week, Manning announced his intention to return as the candidate for the San Fernando East constituency, only to be summoned before the party’s national executive for possible disciplinary charges. Ragoonath said it appeared that past problems between Rowley and Manning still exist. In 2008, Rowley was fired as minister of planning, housing and the environment following a spat with Manning.
Ragoonath said, “What we are witnessing is a recurrence of past battles which have not been resolved. When the PNM lost the elections in 2010, Mr Manning was unceremoniously dumped as the political leader.
“While he has since acknowledged that Dr Rowley is in fact the political leader, there has always been concerns whether Dr Rowley is the best person to lead the PNM forward. Anytime Mr Manning throws his hat into the ring or keeps the hopes of his constituents alive and lets the membership of the PNM know that he is still around, that will create some degree of imbalance.”
PNM Public Relations Officer Faris Al-Rawi charged that the poster was United National Congress (UNC) propaganda to create a perceived rift in the party. The MPs listed in the poster, Patricia McIntosh, Paula Gopee-Scoon, Fitzgerald Jeffrey, Alicia Hospedales, Dr Amery Brown and Nileung Hypolite have all labelled the poster as nonsense.
But Ragoonath said to dismiss it as pure rumour would be disingenuous. He said Manning still has a large support of the PNM’s membership and is still influential. “Mr Manning has made it quite clear that he is fully cognisant of everything and to make the connection now that it is a UNC ploy, I think it is trying to undermine Mr Manning’s credibility. I think it is disingenuous for anyone to say Mr Manning was a tool for the UNC and this was a UNC ploy.”
Another analyst, Dr Maukesh Basdeo said that if there was any truth to the rumours, it meant there was a spilt within the PNM. He said it was too early to dismiss the poster as UNC propaganda. Basdeo said he waits to see how the party progresses to the election.
Basdeo said that with the PNM holding 12 opposition seats in Parliament, if six MPs consent to Manning’s return, Manning’s vote will give him the majority support on the Opposition bench. He said that under the Constitution, Manning would be recognised as opposition leader, but Rowley will still remain political leader because he was elected as the party’s leader.
“If this is true, it is going to create an unease within the opposition party and the membership because it signals a divide in the rank and file. If this happens, it will affect the PNM’s chances because we don’t know if they go into an election, if they will be going as a single or a divided political party.”
Political history
In 2007, under the UNC, former political leader Basdeo Panday did not resign his position as opposition leader in Parliament despite him appointing Winston Dookeran as political leader.
In 1976, Raffique Shah replaced Panday as opposition leader. A year later, Panday regained the majority support on the opposition bench and was reappointed as the leader.
In 1988, the National Alliance for Reconstruction’s government (an alliance between the United Labour Front, the Democratic Action Congress and the Tapia House Movement), Panday’s ULF left government and he replaced Manning as the opposition leader. Panday had six MPs while Manning only had three.
