MANNING
PORT-OF-SPAIN (CMC):
THE RULING People's National Movement (PNM) ended a two-day convention on Sunday promising to "flatten our foes" in the next general election that political observers say may be held in 2006.
"There is a battle coming. We are turning the bend towards another great day in the life of our party and our country," said PNM leader and Prime Minister Patrick Manning. "God alone knows the time and the hour. But when I ring the bell, we shall flatten our foes with a PNM political hurricane, the likes of which they have never seen."
Mr. Manning told supporters attending the party's 40th convention that "his political batteries are now recharged to the maximum" and "whenever we are together like this, I feel more than ready to do battle for Trinidad and Tobago".
SNAP POLL
General elections are constitutionally due by October 2007, but Mr. Manning has hinted in recent weeks of calling a snap poll. Observers say his decision might be influenced by the in-fighting currently engulfing the main opposition United National Congress (UNC).
The Prime Minister made no secret that he was enjoying the UNC feud between the factions of party leader Winston Dookeran and the chairman, Basdeo Panday, the former leader.
Mr. Manning told supporters that when the elections were called, it would be a fight that Dookeran would not be able to "duck and run".
"I give them warning. They can't say I did not tell them. So they better move fast and put their patchwork party together, that is, they can take care of Jack the Ripper," the Prime Minister said in an obvious reference to Austin Jack Warner, the vice-president of the football body FIFA. Mr. Jack is also a deputy leader of the UNC.
BRINK OF ELECTIONS
Mr. Manning warned his party to be ready for the next general elections, which he said, could come "at any hour".
The two-day convention was not attended by Franklin Khan, the former PNM chairman, who resigned on the eve of the meeting due to pending criminal charges against him.
Khan, the former Works and Transport Minister, has been charged with six counts of fraud after a PNM councillor said he had paid him and Energy Minister Eric Williams a bribe for lucrative contracts within the energy sector.
