On Thursday night, Basdeo Panday, the political leader of the UNC, has put supporters on alert for a “long bitter struggle”, that could include “marches, demonstrations, boycotts and civil disobedience” He told a packed hall at the Barrackpore Secondary School, Barrackpore, to prepare for battle, because the PNM would be trying to keep power any way they could, “legally or illegally, lawfully or unlawfully”.

Panday said: “They will stop at nothing and you can expect them to do anything. So it is going to be a long and bitter struggle. But we are no strangers to struggle. We were born in struggle.

“The weapons of that struggle will be the weapons used by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. These weapons will be marches and demonstrations, boycotts and civil disobedience.”

He told them to prepare for a “long hot summer” as they were dealing with “born-again demons”.

Panday said Manning had been hoping some member of the UNC would cross the floor. But he said there was no chance of that happening.

He said Manning is also “... hoping that somebody will be arrested”.

“I want to tell Manning, you arrest falsely one of our men and you touch one you touch all. You will see a reaction such as you have never seen in your life,” he said to loud shouts of approval.

One supporter shouted above the din, “Ah have meh three canal ready.”

Panday told supporters they would not be used by the PNM “like they used Ramesh Maharaj, Ralph Maraj and Trevor Sudama”.

He said they would not surrender the country to the PNM, who, in two months, had undone a lot of the good work done by the UNC.

“After two months of mismanagement and spite, the economy is shrinking.” He said there was also tremendous loss of business confidence and a “drying up” of millions of dollars in investments.

Panday said after just two months it was clear the UNC could not allow the country to be run by the PNM for the next five years.