Prayers for Manning to celebrate 41 years as MP for San Fernando East

File: Patrick Manning at a news conference in 2011

The San Fernando East constituency of the opposition People's National Movement (PNM) is celebrating the 41st anniversary of Patrick Manning's entry into Parliament with prayers for the former prime minister.

Manning would be absent at the event; he is recuperating from a stroke he suffered in January and is receiving treatment in the United States.

Manning did not have to campaign for the seat in the national election that was held on May 24, 1971 - the same date as the election in 2010 that he lost to the People's Partnership.

That was the election in which the opposition refused to participate, claiming that it was rigged in favour of the governing PNM through the use of voting machines that were first introduced in 1961.

Manning was declared the MP for the constituency on nomination day since there was no other candidate running for election in San Fernando East. The constituency was held previously by Gerard Montano, father of former Senate President Danny Montano.

Manning has held the seat for 41 years, making him the longest-serving Member of Parliament in the history of Trinidad & Tobago.

Manning's personal protocol officer, Wendy Lewis, issued a release Wednesday congratulating her boss. "He overcame obstacles, conquered fear and today has made political history as the longest-serving politician of our time. Although illness knocked on his door, he has refused to answer, showing that he can weather any storm," she said.

Manning served as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1995, when he failed to win a majority in a general election he called ahead of time. He returned to Whitehall on Christmas eve 2001 when President Robinson appointed him to replace Basdeo Panday as Prime Minister following the inconclusive general election that resulted in an 18-18 tie.

He governed for nine months without convening Parliament and then won a majority in 2002. He won a third term in the 2007 general election and made a political gamble in 2010 by calling an election on May 24 - the date on which he was first officially elected to Parliament. His party was soundly defeated in that election by the People's partnership coalition led by Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

He had planned to stay on as leader of the PNM until the party elected his successor but the general council refused to accept that and demanded his immediate resignation, which he submitted. His arch political rival Keith Rowley was later elected unopposed as the leader of the PNM and opposition leader.

Manning's first official government post was between 1971 and 1978 when he served as a Parliamentary Secretary. In 1979 then Prime Minister Eric Williams appointed Manning as a junior minister in the office of the PM. He got his first full cabinet post as Minister of Information and Minister of Industry and Commerce just before Williams died in 1981.

In the Chambers administration he served as Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. He was one of three PNM members who survived the stunning defeat of the PNM in the 1986 general election and took over the leadership of the party, serving for a short time as leader of the opposition.

He lost that post to Basdeo Panday, who fell out with the governing National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) and later formed his own party, the United National Congress, which became the official opposition.

Manning led his party to victory in the 1991 general election, which came within a year of the failed Muslimeen coup in which a radical organisation led by Iman Yasin Abu Bakr tried to overthrow the Robinson NAR government. Manning had called the insurrection against the government a "family squabble".

Manning said recently that this would be his last term in politics. He had said previously he wants to become a preacher.