Ryan believes Manning has caused the PNM "terminal" damage

Political Scientist Dr Selwyn Ryan has said his analysis of the Trinidad and Tobago political situation is that Prime Minister Manning called the May 24 election because he sensed that his government was spinning out of control and could well collapse.

"In a state of confusion and panic, he weighed the odds and concluded that he was better off ’overthrowing’ his own government a full 30 months before elections were constitutionally due rather than wait for another 30 months to have it crash more unequivocally than it already had done," Ryan wrote in his column in the Sunday Express.

He added, "Consumed by fear and trembling, the Prime Minister saw enemies everywhere - in the analyses of the columnists and editorial writers and those in the media generally, the pollsters, the feminists, the drug lords, those who belittle persons who were intolerant of born again Christians."

Ryan also pointed to Manning's reliance on biblical language to warn his detractors "that ’though he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, he feared no evil, because my God is with me.'

"The only way his government could lose power was if the people were foolish enough to ’put God out of their thoughts and vote for his rivals," Ryan wrote.

He noted Manning's other "secular explanations" including one view that by calling a snap election he would catch the opposition unprepared "a high wire wager which Mr Manning had made in 1995 and which he had lost."

Ryan noted Manning's other explanations for his gamble, including his rationale that he did not want to provide the opposition "with an opportunity to say all sorts of slanderous things about his relationship with Calder Hart and the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) under the cover of parliamentary privilege during debate on the ’no confidence’ motion.

Ryan observed that both opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and UNC chairman Jack Warner had planned to throw "the whole barrel of muck at him" and Manning tried to pre-empt that by warning that his ’battery of lawyers' would deal with any slanderous comments.

"Mr Manning clearly believed that his chances of succeeding were better in the open theatre of an election than in the lobbies of Parliament, especially if he could get a ’kokey-o-co’ on Mr Rowley’s back.

"Whether forced or not, the rehabilisation of Rowley was a brilliant tactic that could effectively save the PNM from comprehensive defeat," Ryan said.

However, he doesn't think that manning's strategy will solve the problem, since "the damage that Mr Manning has done to the PNM over the past few years has been structural and terminal."

Ryan said Manning's overriding belief that "race, fear of unstable coalitions, negative campaigning and his divine shield would in the end rescue and protect him" seems to be without foundation.

"The gender factor also seems to be working powerfully against the harried leader as is his persistent narcissism and hubris, and his impending rendezvous with nemesis," Ryan wrote.

Read the full column: Self coups and political regeneration in the Sunday Express