Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell is tipped to re­ceive nom­i­na­tion with par­ty group back­ing for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-held La Brea con­stituen­cy.

This was con­firmed by PNM sources yes­ter­day, af­ter Mitchell’s name con­tin­ued cir­cu­lat­ing in the con­stituen­cy.

Last week Mon­day, La Brea sub­mit­ted in­cum­bent MP Stephen McLashie and Brighton Ves­signy coun­cil­lor Jil­lon Lewis to the screen­ing com­mit­tee but they were re­ject­ed af­ter be­ing screened at Bal­isi­er House.

Siparia cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man Christo­pher Enci­nas, who re­ceived the ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port from the ex­ec­u­tive, didn’t at­tend screen­ing due to ill­ness. La Brea’s ex­ec­u­tive was then man­dat­ed to pro­duce more nom­i­nees by De­cem­ber 20.

Ear­li­er this week, Enci­nas said he had sent the Screen­ing Com­mit­tee a sick leave cer­tifi­cate, had im­proved health-wise and in­tend­ed re­sub­mit­ting his name for nom­i­na­tion for can­di­da­cy.

But yes­ter­day, Enci­nas told Guardian Me­dia that sub­se­quent med­ical ad­vice rec­om­mend­ed more re­cu­per­a­tion time while en route to his full re­cov­ery and he wouldn’t go for­ward with his nom­i­na­tion.

So far, La Brea con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Jer­mel Pierre has sub­mit­ted to the ex­ec­u­tive a con­sent let­ter for nom­i­na­tion.

How­ev­er, checks yes­ter­day found Mitchell’s name as a strong con­tender al­so. La Brea PNM sources said Mitchell, a for­mer PNM San Fer­nan­do East MP, is like­ly to re­ceive a nom­i­na­tion with the sup­port of par­ty groups. They not­ed that he’s very fa­mil­iar with La Brea, since he has ties to the area from his child­hood and that his fa­ther, a PNM stal­wart, is al­so a for­mer Point Fortin may­or.

“His doc­u­ment­ed pas­sion for pub­lic ser­vice has been seen in ac­tion dur­ing his tenure in pol­i­tics, in­clud­ing in San Fer­nan­do East. We saw him ‘wuk’ re­al hard to re­vive the cruise ship in­dus­try and gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment af­ter the pan­dem­ic closed it and his re­cent pi­lot­ing of law to make the steel­pan T&T’s mu­si­cal in­stru­ment, is part of his­to­ry,” said Mitchell’s sup­port­ers.

Mitchell, an at­tor­ney, was se­lect­ed for and won San Fer­nan­do East for the PNM in 2015 elec­tions, fol­low­ing long­stand­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP, for­mer prime min­is­ter and PNM leader Patrick Man­ning.

In the PNM Gov­ern­ment of 2015 to 2020, Mitchell served in sev­er­al port­fo­lios, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment and Min­is­ter of Tourism. He was a mem­ber of sev­er­al Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees, in­clud­ing on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fi­nance and oth­er ar­eas.

In 2020, Man­ning’s son Bri­an was cho­sen as San Fer­nan­do East can­di­date, win­ning the seat. Serv­ing along­side Man­ning in the cur­rent PNM Gov­ern­ment, Mitchell al­so was ap­point­ed a sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

Born in Co­coyea Vil­lage, Mitchell at­tend­ed San Fer­nan­do Boys’ RC and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do. He ob­tained his Bach­e­lor of Laws from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don in 2007, a Mas­ter of Laws from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Northum­bria in 2009; and, was ad­mit­ted to the Ut­ter Bar of Eng­land and Wales in 2008; and the Bar of T&T in 2009.

In 2017, he grad­u­at­ed with a Dis­tinc­tion in the In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ter of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion from the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness,UWI.

Af­ter La Brea was man­dat­ed to get more nom­i­nees, ex-UNC of­fi­cial Tahar­qa Obi­ka, who joined PNM in 2023, said he’d of­fer him­self “to be a ser­vant to the peo­ple of La Brea.”

Obi­ka re­ceived the bless­ing of for­mer min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte, who un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought to con­test the seat in 2020 af­ter re­sign­ing as a min­is­ter.

Yes­ter­day, there was no re­ply to Guardian Me­dia from Obi­ka on if he’s sub­mit­ted con­sent for nom­i­na­tion.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant not back­ing pro­posed names

Mean­while, af­ter Laven­tille East/Mor­vant of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that while a few names have been men­tioned for the seat, in the wake of in­cum­bent Adri­an Leonce’s de­ci­sion not to con­test, these are yet to re­ceive back­ing from any of the area’s 20 par­ty groups.

Names in­clud­ed that of a fu­ner­al home di­rec­tor and a doc­tor who was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed a tem­po­rary PNM sen­a­tor.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox - who held the seat from 2007 to 2015 - re­port­ed­ly said last week she hadn’t de­cid­ed whether she’d seek nom­i­na­tion. How­ev­er, it was con­firmed yes­ter­day that Cox is not in­ter­est­ed.

Of­fi­cials said the ex­ec­u­tive is still hope­ful Leonce will re­con­sid­er. Whether or not names will be pro­duced for the De­cem­ber 20 dead­line, of­fi­cials said the ex­ec­u­tive will meet soon and based on that meet­ing, a de­ci­sion will be tak­en.