A Special Service Unit officer removes a government supporter from opposition picket lines last week.

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, CMC – Supporters of the country’s two main political parties were congregating in the capital on Monday ahead of the delivery of the 2010 national budget by Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves.

But the socio-political group, People’s Movement for Change (PMC), is calling for restraint “in order to avoid tension that could lead to clashes and violence” following a verbal clash between supporters of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) and the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) last week.

But the two parties were rallying their respective supporters to gather outside the House of Assembly during the presentation budget late on Monday.

The NDP said it is protesting the “major issues confronting the nation” while ULP supporters have been called out in solidarity with the government.

On January 14, the NDP issued a statement announcing the protest action “throughout the budget exercise”, but Hans King, the press secretary to Prime Minister Gonsalves, speaking on radio on Monday, called on ULP supporters to bring placards and gather outside the House of Assembly.

“Remember (to) conduct yourself peacefully, and civilly. This is all about peace; this is all about support; this is all about solidarity,” King said, adding “we are not out there to fight or war with anybody”.

Meanwhile, callers to the opposition-sponsored New Times programme on another radio station were questioning whether the Commissioner of Police had approved the ULP’s activity.

But in a statement, the PMC said that “now is not the time for scoring cheap political points without regard for the consequence.

“A singular thought should preoccupy all of us: the development and security of our country and the protection of all our citizens,” PMC general secretary Jomo Thomas said.

Special Services Unit lawmen removed about a dozen ULP supporters from alongside hundred of NDP supporters at an NDP protest outside the House of Assembly last week Tuesday.

Thomas said he was “alarmed by the dangerous escalation of rhetoric and action” and called on both parties to “to shoulder the national duty to provide bold, sound, responsible, clear-sighted and far-sighted leadership.

“The deepening of the tribal and partisan practices evidenced by the protest action and counter action, demand a strategy on the part of the security forces which strictly draws and maintains a line in the streets across which neither side must cross,” he said.