Mitchell, (Sonny) James (FitzAllen) (1931– )

St Vincent and the Grenadines centrist politician, prime minister 1972–74 and from 1984. Initially a St Vincent Labour Party (SVLP) representative, he became premier as an independent in 1972. He founded the centrist New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1975, and led it to power in 1984. As prime minister, he supported moves to integrate with Dominica, Grenada, and St Lucia into a Windward Islands Federation, encouraged agricultural diversification away from banana production, and promoted tourism and the ‘offshore banking’sector, but was criticized for his failure to deal with money laundering and drug trafficking.

In the 1980s Mitchell opposed US attempts to increase militarization in the region. On his re-election in 1989, the NDP won all 15 elected house of assembly seats. He had planned to retire before the 1994 general election, but stayed on in the ‘national interest’. He received a knighthood in 1995.

Mitchell trained and worked as an agronomist and teacher in Trinidad, Canada and England from 1958, and then bought and managed a hotel on his home island of Bequia in 1965. He entered politics through the SVLP, representing the Grenadines constituency in the house of assembly in 1966. In the pre-independence period he served in the government of Milton Cato as minister of trade, production, labour, and tourism between 1967 and 1972.