What snap election? It was planned since 2009: Manning

The opposition has claimed that Prime Minister Patrick Manning called a snap election because he feared what might happen in a no confidence motion planned for February 9, the day before he advised the president to dissolve Parliament.

There has also been talk that Manning moved to seek a fresh mandate because of dissent in his own party spawned by his open conflict with Keith Rowley and that a palace coup was imminent.

And others have speculated that the government was brought down by the weight of allegations of corruption and the report of the Uff probe into the operations of UDeCOTT and the construction sector.

Manning himself had said he sprung the date on the opposition and caught them "with their pants down". He waited a full week after Parliament was dissolved before announcing the May 24 date for the vote.

But now Manning is saying it was no snap election and part of a well planned strategy that was devised since October 2009. However he made sure no one knew about it.

Earlier in the week he spoke about the 1995 election, which he also called before it was due and lost. He said in 1995 he had planned to surprise the opposition with a snap poll but one of his people leaked the election date to then opposition leader Basdeo Panday and that is why he lost the election.

He said that is a mistake he would never repeat, which is why his plan for 2010 remained his personal secret.

"On October 9, 2009, after looking at our forward program, after making an assessment of the Government, I took a decision to call general elections on May 24, 2010," Manning told supporters at a PNM public meeting in Point Fortin.

He did not explain why as far back as October last year with a strong majority and less than two years into a five-year mandate he saw the a need to call fresh election.

But he said he caught the UNC unprepared because "there was no chance of any leak" this time.

"I took a diary I had and began to circle a number of dates. I circled the 24th of May, I circled the date on which we will have to dissolve the Parliament, I circled the date on which we would have to have a special convention...

"I circled the date on which we should start walkabouts in constituencies, I circled the date on which we should start walkabouts in the national community ... all of these dates were circles against the possibility, and against the possibility that the diary fell into the wrong hands, I circled some other dates that were of no significance at all," he said.

"So even if, my dear friends, that diary fell into the wrong hands it would have meant absolutely nothing to who got it," he added.

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