GRAND FINALE

With many polls showing a neck-and-neck race between the two parties in an election whose result will likely hinge on just a handful of key marginal seats, the rallies will be a last attempt to swing vital, precious votes.

Thousands of supporters are expected to attend each event and the police are opening up the Priority Bus Route to help filter the traffic flowing from across the country to the two venues of the rallies on the East/West Corridor. (See page 4)

The PNM will aim to turn the Eddie Hart Grounds, Tacarigua, into a sea of red, while the People’s Partnership will flood the Aranjuez Savannah with the yellow and white jerseys of the UNC and COP respectively, plus those of the TOP, NJAC and Movement for Social Justice (MSJ).

The People’s Partnership event, entitled, “Unity and Liberation Rally” is due to start at 2 pm at Aranjuez, while the PNM’s “Red Day Mass Rally” is somewhat optimistically advertised to start at 12 pm, although formalities will likely begin at about 2 pm. Some 10 speakers, including the five leaders of its five parties, are set to address the People’s Partnership rally, culminating in the final speech by UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who is seeking to become the country’s first woman prime minister.

The keynote PNM speaker will be political leader, Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Each party will try to rouse their supporters with entertainment.

The People’s Partnership will present Jah Melody, Crazy, Orange Sky’s Nigel Rojas, De Fosto, Anil Bheem, Rajin and Oscar B. The PNM is expected to produce Pelf and Adesh Samaroo, among others, in a fare of “calypso, chutney, pan and tassa,” as advertised.

Pelf will tell you why only the PNM loves and cares for you, while De Fosto will hit various PNM scandals to say why “I can’t vote for that”.

Will Percy Villafana put in an appearance at Aranjuez with his “Do So” crossed arms gesture? Who will guest for the PNM?

The People’s Partnership event will be broadcast on TV6, WIN TV, CNC3, IBN and Synergy TV, plus on seven radio stations. The PNM rally can be seen “live” on CNMG and IETV, and on five radio stations.

Today’s rallies come at the end of a most incredible 38 days since Manning called the election date, after earlier dissolving Parliament in what the Opposition said was his bid to duck debate on Persad-Bissessar’s no-confidence motion on Manning over Udecott.

The election campaign has not been a particularly happy time for the PNM that at first struggled to get its supporters to attend meetings, even as Manning remained under a Udecott cloud. A low point was the PNM’s Presentation of Candidates rally in Woodford Square on May 2 when Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley reportedly refused to formally speak after having to wait till the 11th hour to learn of his re-selection as candidate. The Manning/Rowley rift continued to dog the PNM when Rowley told supporters at a Four Roads meeting in his constituency not to throw the captain overboard during a battle but that later there would be time for dry-dock and court-martial. Some said Rowley had compromised himself by being too passive towards Manning who had clearly ridden rough-shod over him during the whole Udecott saga, while UNC adverts hit him for letting Manning stay at the helm while running the ship aground, in a Devil/Deep Blue Sea dilemma for Rowley.

Earlier this week, Rowley, at the party’s national meeting in Diego Martin, told supporters to support the PNM even as he said he had concerns about the party’s leadership. He also said he felt there was a chance the PNM could lose to the People’s Partnership. So all eyes will be on how Rowley and Manning interact today.

However by last weekend, the PNM pulled a huge crowd of youngsters to their youth rally at Queen’s Park Savannah, which although a fete for youths, surely gave comfort to the PNM leadership that their party was appreciated by the young.

The PNM rally at Macoya on Thursday also drew a very convincing crowd, as well as at Toco/Sangre Grande last night, its final meeting on the campaign trail, although the party has been accused of busing supporters to its meetings across the country.

Of course, the other key figure this election has been Persad-Bisssessar, who returned to Tobago for a second time last night on a campaign to encourage Tobagonians to vote for Ashworth Jack’s TOP, a strategic partner in the coalition.

Since winning the UNC leadership from UNC founder Basdeo Panday on January 24 and since persuading eight out of 15 UNC MPs to make her Leader of the Opposition on February 24, she has personally lived her party’s Election 2010 slogan, “We will rise”. She has since said she was overjoyed when Manning set the election date as May 24, which she hopes will be the third date in which her star ascends.Persad-Bissessar has had to forge a five-party coalition through many late nights of talks, negotiate the allocation of seats to parties, select candidates, and create a manifesto for an entity untried and unproven by never having had to be in government before. The past four months have been the ride of her life for Persad-Bissessar who on Monday might well become this country’s first woman prime minister. But she is not without her critics, who are still asking of her speeches, “where’s the meat”?

Some have criticised her make-over as an attempt to look like US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to sound like US President Barack Obama.
Manning even teased that her motto, “We will rise”, sounded like a Viagra advert. She raised eyebrows in some quarters by her Americanisms such as her use of 1973 the country and western hit, “Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree”, last Tuesday at St Joseph, and her earlier use of Celine Dion’s hit, “New Day”

That said, since January 24 she had travelled the most amazing journey that has taken her from mere “Siparia MP” to the verge of moving to become “Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar”.

Manning has seen a recent surge among the PNM’s traditional core, base support, and will today be looking for signs in the size and spirit of the crowd to see if he can head off the coalition’s challenge.