A newspaper report Sunday claims that there is a move within the opposition party to dump its leader, Keith Rowley, who contributed to the fall of his predecessor, Patrick Manning.
The drama that is unfolding has an unusual twist and one of its principal players appears to be Manning, the man who described Rowley as a "wajang" after he kicked him out of the cabinet for challenging Manning's cozy relationship with the former head of UDeCOTT, Calder Hart.
Manning, the report suggests, is planning a political resurrection and is apparently working closely with the former PNM chairman, Franklin Khan, who had to resign his cabinet and party posts after he was charged with corruption. The charges were later withdrawn when the state determined than Khan's accuser was not a credible witness.
People who know Manning well, like political scientist Dr Selwyn Ryan, are saying that the country should not underestimate the former PM.
“Mr Manning cannot be trusted at face value. He is using a strategy to recover centre stage with the assistance of the media,” Ryan told the Sunday Guardian. “He was waiting for the right moment to return to the spotlight...He definitely has a strategy up his sleeves.”
Manning remained silent for six months in Parliament until recently when he surfaced with headline-grabbing accusations about the house in Phillipine that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her husband have been building for the past eight years.
His distraction came after Persad-Bissessar exposed Manning and fingered him in an illegal wiretapping racket in which a special agency - the Strategic Intelligence Agency (SIA) - was eavesdropping on the private phone calls of citizens, including the head of state, the judiciary, top politicians and journalists.
The government has since passed legislation to use wiretapping legally if absolutely necessary and if sanctioned by the proper authorities. No more illegal snooping on law-abiding citizens.
But when faced with the prospect of defending his position, Manning chose to deflect attention and make slanderous statements about something totally irrelevant - Kamla's palace, as he called it.
Manning has also suggested that the Attorney General is making up stories to implicate him in the illegal activities conducted by the SIA. Anand Ramlogan told Parliament that the former head of the SIA told him that Manning gave instructions to spy on people and went as far as suggesting the PNM was likely behind the spike in serious crimes.
Manning responded with his own accusations. While denying any knowledge of the spying, he suggested that Ramlogan was telling a big lie.
"I wish to ask the Attorney General to stop letting his fertile imagination run wild," he said in a media release.
"It is most unbecoming for one who holds such high office and very unsettling for the national community who expect calm, rationality and sobriety from those who impact so directly on the security and stability of our nation," Manning added.
The innuendos in the rest of his statement are important. He suggested that Ramlogan's motive was to "grab headlines" since there is "very intense competition among many in the Cabinet now anxiously aspiring to succeed the Prime Minister."
That is deliberate 'khoochur'. Manning is trying to create divisions within the People's Partnership by suggesting that Ramlogan is trying to upstage his cabinet colleague, Roodal Moonilal, the man named by the Prime Minister as her successor.
Instead of trying to deal with relevant national issues and matters of national security Manning is making a juvenile attempt to create his own agenda while trying to plant a fox in the government's hen house.
His hope is that he could add salt to whatever minor wounds there might be in the partnership while advancing himself as a leader. He had been suffering from political tabanca for six months; now he appears ready to make his comeback.
Privately he has been plotting his revenge against Rowley through his silence and it seems that he is ready to make his play.
I disagree with suggestions by political pundits that Manning deliberately threw away the election because of the mess he had made. Manning invested too much to give it away. He had hoped for a double whammy in calling the snap election - to catch the opposition unprepared and also to dispose of Rowley forever.
He miscalculated both. And now after six months in the political wilderness during which he plotted his next moves, he has put the political shame behind him and is making a play to become a national leader once more.
His problem, of course, is that he is so scarred by scandal and allegations of corruption that he cannot seriously expect anyone in the party to reinstate him. However he knows Rowley has made serious tactical missteps.
The new leader has been trying to put his own stamp on the party, while making big blunders along the way. Manning's lips were sealed while all this was happening. And now that he sees Rowley politically wounded he is getting ready for the kill.
He already has some of his troops within the small parliamentary caucus. If he could infiltrate the party organs and the 41 constituency groups Rowley could face the worse shock of the political career.
Whether Manning can engineer Rowley's fall will depend on how desperate the party is to pull itself out of the gutter in which it finds itself now with droves of supporters running off to become part of the People's Partnership.
The attraction for those who are embracing the government is that the Prime Minister and her political allies have made it clear that this government is a people first administration that does not consider party affiliation as a prime factor in governing.
It means many PNMites who had feared victimization from the new government remain comfortable in their jobs as they should. The obvious political millstones are being replaced, but those who hold office based on merit have remained there.
The message is that PNM people have nothing to offer so they are deserting the once mighty party of Dr Eric Williams and there is a big question mark today about whether the party will rise again and "prevail".
Manning and his allies are making the point that if it is to get out of the political quicksand it must find a new leader since Rowley has failed to invigorate the party.
If the rumours turn out to be true we can expect to hear much more from the Member of Parliament for San Fernando East. And Trinidad and Tobago might soon see the wily and cunning Manning as a fixture in the political landscape.
Jai Parasram - 05 Dec. 2010
Plot to remove Rowley as PNM leader and install Frankie Khan: Guardian report
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