Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive the ma­jor­i­ty of Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's La Brea par­ty group and ex­ec­u­tive sup­port for can­di­da­cy - de­spite Wednes­day's heat­ed La Brea Youth League meet­ing where tem­pers flared be­tween rel­a­tives of a cer­tain con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial and Youth League mem­bers.

And Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce is mum on whether he's re­con­sid­er­ing with­draw­ing and may al­low the area's unit to nom­i­nate him for can­di­da­cy to­day.

This, as the 4 pm dead­line ar­rives for sub­mis­sion of nom­i­nees from La Brea, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant and To­ba­go East and West.

Of­fi­cials of the To­ba­go East and West units yes­ter­day con­firmed that un­op­posed nom­i­nees are the re­spec­tive MPs Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy and Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis. Screen­ing for those seats is ear­ly Jan­u­ary. When the PNM's Screen­ing Team met on De­cem­ber 2 to se­lect can­di­dates for 15 ar­eas, Laven­tille East Mor­vant and La Brea were man­dat­ed to seek fresh nom­i­nees by to­day. That was af­ter Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Leonce didn't show up for screen­ing and lat­er opt­ed out due to per­son­al is­sues.

Al­so, La Brea nom­i­nees, MP Stephen McLashie and Brighton Ves­signy coun­cil­lor Jil­lon Lewis, were not ap­proved. An­oth­er nom­i­nee - Siparia al­der­man Stephen Enci­nas - didn't at­tend screen­ing due to ill­ness. Enci­nas had the ma­jor­i­ty of par­ty group and ex­ec­u­tive sup­port but lat­er dropped out to re­cu­per­ate.

La Brea con­stituen­cy chair­man Jer­mel Pierre sub­se­quent­ly sub­mit­ted con­sent for nom­i­na­tion, which re­ceived par­ty group sup­port.

For­mer San Fer­nan­do East MP Mitchell al­so sub­mit­ted con­sent for nom­i­na­tion and was sup­port­ed by par­ty groups.

La Brea of­fi­cials said Mitchell and Pierre are the on­ly nom­i­nees, since re­cent PNM mem­ber Tahar­qa Obi­ka and Ger­maine Bovell-Pitt dropped out. Obi­ka said last Sun­day he'd sup­port who­ev­er was cho­sen.

The unit's Women's League and Youth League (YL) were to meet Wednes­day night at a Pa­lo Seco venue to de­cide on their re­spec­tive nom­i­nees. But of­fi­cials con­firmed both meet­ings were post­poned due to the is­sue that arose when cer­tain per­sons who were not fi­nan­cial Youth League mem­bers at­tempt­ed to par­tic­i­pate and the con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial's rel­a­tive who ac­com­pa­nied them, tried to "in­tim­i­date" the Youth League chair­man and youth of­fi­cer.

They said some of the peo­ple who went to the meet­ing couldn't say which par­ty groups they be­longed to and ap­peared "un­sure of why they were even there." They added that the rel­a­tive of the se­nior con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial al­leged­ly at­tempt­ed to in­tim­i­date the fe­male Youth League head and the youth of­fi­cer, by "go­ing up in her face" to talk harsh­ly at her and an­oth­er per­son pulled the man off, with an en­su­ing scuf­fle. They said sim­i­lar tac­tics and shout­ing were al­so mount­ed by oth­ers. A se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer lat­er warned per­sons.

Of­fi­cials said the Women and Youth League meet­ings were post­poned and the unit will ask for an ex­ten­sion for those two groups to do their se­lec­tion this week­end and send their nom­i­na­tions lat­er.

How­ev­er, they said the par­ty group nom­i­na­tions for Mitchell and Pierre will be sub­mit­ted to Bal­isi­er House to­day. They said Mitchell had sup­port of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 16 of the 31 par­ty groups - with a cou­ple more to be com­plet­ed - and he al­so has ex­ec­u­tive sup­port. They said Mitchell will be rec­om­mend­ed by the ex­ec­u­tive to the screen­ing team as the unit's choice for can­di­date. They not­ed Mitchell was born in Siparia and at­tend­ed Beach Camp school.

Nei­ther Pierre nor Mitchell replied to calls on the is­sue

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant still hop­ing for Leonce

Mean­while, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant ex­ec­u­tives were tightlipped on the prospects for nom­i­na­tion. They had been adamant that they want­ed Leonce to re­con­sid­er. Sev­er­al names, in­clud­ing that of a fu­ner­al home di­rec­tor, a doc­tor and for­mer MP Don­na Cox- were re­ject­ed.

When asked about nom­i­na­tions and if Leonce may re­con­sid­er, the of­fi­cials said they were all hop­ing he does. On whether Leonce has said he may re­con­sid­er, they in­di­cat­ed yes­ter­day, "The day is still young. Those in­ter­est­ed may sub­mit nom­i­na­tions on the brink of the dead­line."

Leonce didn't re­ply to TG on if he's re­con­sid­ered.