Panday returns to Parliament Friday with his laptop

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday returns to Parliament Friday after an absence of more than nine months. Speaker of the House of Representatives Barendra Sinanan kicked the Couva North MP out of the House last March for using his laptop computer without the Speaker's permission.

The central executive of the United National Congress Alliance (UNC-A) meets Wednesday to discuss Panday's return to Parliament and whether the oparty should invite supporters to go to Woodford Square to show support for their leader.

Panday refused several attempts to negotiate his earlier retuirn to the House, including one that would have allowed the government to pass a contentious piece of public integrity legislation.

Read the story and other related stories and a commentary on the laptop affair

UNC-A chief executive officer Dr Tim Gopeesingh willo raise the matter at Wednesday's meeting and propose that the party demonstrate its strength by inviting supporters and actvisits to show up in Port of Spain for a rally similar to the one held in support of PNM Leader Patrick Manning last September when he faced a no-confidence vote in the House of Representatives.

Gopeesingh hopes that the opposition would also seek an extra half-hour during Friday's tea break to allow Panday to go across to Woodford Square to address his supporters and thank them for coming out, as Manning did a few months ago.

He also hopes that such a rally would demonstrate to the nation that Panday is the leader of a vibrant organisation and that the party's rank and file members are "thrilled" to see him back in Parliament.

Panday has not commented on what may or may not transpire at the executive meeting. But he said he has a duty to represent the people who elected him to office and he plans to do just that. And he will have his trusted laptop with him when he returns to the House.

He doesn't expect any further problems with the Speaker but insists that he would do "his duty". The former prime minister had argued at the time of his suspension that his expulsion from the national Parliament had nothing to do with the computer.

He said then that the Speaker was trying to establish a regime in the House by which no member of the opposition would be able to expose the corruption and incompetence of the PNM unless the Speaker allows it.

"Democracy is under threat if the government can use its majority in the House of Representatives to keep elected officials out of the Parliament," he said.