Gail Alexan­der

Busi­ness­man and lawyer Ran­dall Mitchell has sub­mit­ted a con­sent let­ter to be nom­i­nat­ed for the PNM's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy.This was con­firmed by the unit yes­ter­day and fol­lows San Fer­nan­do East in­cum­bent Patrick Man­ning giv­ing con­sent to be nom­i­nat­ed. As of yes­ter­day, nom­i­na­tions had not been forth­com­ing apart from con­sent by Man­ning and, yes­ter­day, Mitchell.

Mitchell, 36, who joined the PNM in 2008, was ap­point­ed a mem­ber of the PNM's elec­tion Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee in 2014. This com­mit­tee han­dled the plan­ning, de­vel­op­ing and over­see­ing of the PNM's first one man/one vote sys­tem for the May 2013 in­ter­nal elec­tions. The new sys­tem was pro­posed by PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley who re­tained the lead­er­ship post in the poll.

He was area man­ag­er for Co­coyea South and al­so ap­point­ed co-or­di­na­tor for Ma­yaro/Rio Claro in the 2011 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. He was ap­point­ed co-or­di­na­tor of the Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy in 2014.Mitchell, a phar­ma­cy own­er from Co­coyea Vil­lage, al­so worked with the law firm of Ernest H. Koy­lass and Com­pa­ny af­ter be­ing ad­mit­ted to the bar in 2009. He has al­so head­ed busi­ness­es in the hu­man re­source and plan­ning fields and worked in mar­ket­ing.

Mitchell has a law de­gree and vo­ca­tion­al de­gree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Northum­bria. He won the Buchanan Prize (Best Over­all BVC stu­dent) of Lin­coln's Inn at Northum­bria Uni­ver­si­ty for 2007-2008.Oth­er San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers are al­so eye­ing coun­cil­lor Ron­dell Don­awa. But they have not­ed the lead­er­ship's pref­er­ence against sit­ting coun­cil­lors since this would re­quire by-elec­tions to fill their coun­cil seats.

San Fer­nan­do East of­fi­cials said Man­ning had made it clear he would not rec­om­mend any­one from out­side of the con­stituen­cy, if he didn't con­test. They said that ruled out for­mer min­is­ter Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid who is as­sist­ing Man­ning.

It al­so rules out for­mer unit chair­man Tina Gron­lund-Nunez, who they said was ex­pect­ed home from Texas, but has not ar­rived. For­mer min­is­ter Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who was be­ing con­sid­ered by some, is un­avail­able since she is the PNM's Pointe-a-Pierre cam­paign man­ag­er.