Gail Alexan­der

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) La Brea unit will be rec­om­mend­ing Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell as its can­di­date when screen­ing is held, af­ter Mitchell - who holds the ma­jor­i­ty of par­ty group sup­port - al­so ob­tained the ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port from the unit’s Women’s and Youth leagues last Sun­day.

The La Brea PNM Women and Youth league units held their nom­i­na­tion process last Sun­day evening, presided over by PNM’s elec­tion of­fi­cer In­dar Paras­ram, of­fi­cials con­firmed. This was af­ter last Wednes­day’s Youth League meet­ing, where tem­pers flared amongst cer­tain per­sons. The meet­ing was sub­se­quent­ly post­poned, as was the Women’s League meet­ing that was to be held that day.

Mitchell and con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Jer­mel Pierre are the on­ly two nom­i­nees. Both had par­ty groups sup­port, though Mitchell had more up to last Wednes­day.

Last Fri­day was the dead­line for nom­i­na­tions from To­ba­go, La Brea and Laven­tille East/Mor­vant. The To­ba­go units sub­mit­ted in­cum­bent MPs Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy (To­ba­go East) and Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis (To­ba­go West). Laven­tille East/Mor­vant’s nom­i­na­tions in­clud­ed Dr Je­re­my In­nis and a teacher.

The La Brea ex­ec­u­tive in­formed the par­ty of the sit­u­a­tion with the post­poned Youth and Women’s Leagues meet­ings and was man­dat­ed to hold both meet­ings last Sun­day and sub­mit the out­comes by yes­ter­day.

Af­ter the meet­ing last Sun­day, con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials told Guardian Me­dia that Mitchell re­ceived 30 votes from the Youth League and Pierre, one. Mitchell re­ceived 38 votes from the Women’s League and Pierre got none. They said Mitchell has sup­port from 19 par­ty groups and Pierre has sup­port from 12. As a re­sult, they said Mitchell would be rec­om­mend­ed as the unit’s can­di­date of choice for can­di­da­cy when screen­ing is un­der­tak­en.

How­ev­er, both Mitchell and Pierre will still face the PNM’s screen­ing team head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The La Brea nom­i­na­tions were sent to the par­ty yes­ter­day. Screen­ing for the La Brea, To­ba­go and Laven­tille East/Mor­vant nom­i­nees is ex­pect­ed in the first week of Jan­u­ary.