Manning pre-empts no-confidence motion

Patrick Manning has staved off today’s challenge of a no-confidence motion in his leadership as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago by dissolving parliament. (Photo: juventudrebelde.co.cu)

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, April 9, 2010 – Patrick Manning has staved off today’s challenge of a no-confidence motion in his leadership as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago by dissolving parliament.

In a short release issued yesterday afternoon from the prime minister’s St Clair, Port of Spain office, citizens of Trinidad and Tobago were put on notice that Manning had advised President George Maxwell Richards to dissolve the parliament of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago with effect from midnight, Thursday, April 8, 2010, and that the relevant proclamation had been made. 

This move by Manning comes as parliament was scheduled to vote to today on a motion of no confidence against him as tabled by leader of the United National Congress (UNC) opposition party Kamla Persad Bissessar last month. 

In a statement issued late last night, Persad Bissessar scathingly described Manning’s dissolution of parliament as: “the final surrender to what has been mounting pressure both from within his very own party and the public for him to answer the many troubling questions concerning his own personal integrity and those within his administration.”

In a littany of accusations, the UNC leader described Manning as “petrified” of the information which would have come before the parliament related to: the UDeCOTT and Calder Hart issue; the release of the findings of the Uff Commission of Enquiry; the criminal probe into the Abu Bakr land deal; the construction of a Church at Guanapo Heights;  the dangerous Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority Bill; the unpopular property tax; fear of unchecked crime; a breakdown in the provision of health, water, education; and the squandering of resources.

She also described the move to call elections two years ahead of their scheduled time as “an admission of colossal failure”. 

General elections were last held on November 5, 2007 and were next scheduled to be held in 2012. While Parliament has now been dissolved, no actual date for the upcoming polls has been announced. According to the Trinidad and Tobago constitution, general elections have to be called within three months of the dissolution of parliament.