Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister Patrick Manning is taking the biggest gamble of his political career in tomorrow’s general election here, having called the poll midway into his term which was scheduled to end in 2012. Having also called a snap poll in 1995 and lost, Manning either thinks this time he’ll be luckier or maybe he feels he has God’s blessings.One suspects both. Whichever he subscribes too, he has to win. Victory would make him the de facto and de jure leader of his People’s National Movement (PNM) and should quell, for a while at least, the rumblings within the party against his leadership. Indeed a poll by political scientist Professor Selwyn Ryan published in yesterday’s Trinidad Express said 67 per cent of PNM people polled prefer rival Dr Keith Rowley to lead the PNM if the party loses tomorrow’s election.A victory would also put Manning’s resurgent opposition opponents on the backfoot and give him the elbow room to fulfil planned programmes and projects designed to ensure the continued pre-eminence of the PNM, and secure his legacy.So while victory means everything to Manning; defeat could spell his political demise.Even so, one might ask why would he call a poll at this time? After all, many of his party colleagues indicated they did not want it.Simply put, Manning had little choice.Manning effectively called this election to bolster his position after a series of public conflicts and disclosures after his controversial sacking of popular senior colleague, and as Ryan argued, the de facto leader of the party, Rowley.He fired Rowley in 2008, a year after securing a 26 – 15 seat victory over the opposition United National Congress (UNC), then led by the irrepressibleBasdeo Panday.Rowley was dismissed in the midst of public bickering between himself and Manning over the role of the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (Udecott)and its former executive chairman, Calder Hart.While Manning denied that Udecott was acting without adequate Cabinet oversight, Rowley has insisted that he was dismissed after insisting on greater Cabinet oversight of the corporation, which handles the largest infrastructure developments in the twin island nation.The dispute snowballed into a Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Udecott after the umbrella body representing the country’s construction sector began a public campaignagainst Udecott.Last month the Commission of Enquiry recommended criminal investigations into Udecott’s operations and Hart.Hart resigned after a family relationship was allegedly established between his wife and a director in a firm that received more than TT$800 million (about BDS$267 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. Faced with the Hart imbroglio and an imminent motion of no-confidence filed against him in parliament by the opposition, Manning went for the electoral jugular, advising President George Maxwell Richards to dissolve parliament on April 15, less than 24-hours before the no-confidence debate.For opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, history is hers for the making. She is this twin-island republic’s first female prime-ministerial candidate. Her bid to run this oil rich nation of 1.3 million people comes less than three months after she became opposition leader.Persad-Bissessar beat Basdeo Panday for her party’s leadership on January 24; was sworn in as opposition leader on February 24, and now says she fully expects to beat Manning on May 24.After the election bell was rung, and with five weeks before polling day, the UNC got together with Winston Dookeran’s Congress of the People (which garnered just over 25 per cent of the votes cast in the 2007 election but won no seat) and other opposition parties to form the People’s Partnership coalition to unseatthe PNM.Based on the 2007 polling results, this merger of determination has effectively created at least ten marginal seats for this election with opinion polls indicating that many may go to the opposition. As for the issues, the PNM campaign strategy has been to focus on the divisive history of political alliances and coalitions here, specially the National Alliance of Reconstruction which beat the PNM 33-3 in 1986 only to collapse – but stay in office – after the UNC pulled out in 1988.The People’s Partnership’s campaign has trained its guns directly on Manning’s leadership and performance, painting him as a dictator in his dismissal of Rowley and as a facilitator of public wrong-doing in his handling of Udecott.Tomorrow, the 1 040 011 Trinbagonians registered to vote will say who they believe.Then Manning will know if his gamble paid off.
