New Orleans' mayor overcomes Katrina to win re-election

LOS ANGELES - New Orleans' outspoken Mayor, Ray Nagin, was narrowly re-elected to a second four-year term following a passionate campaign waged in the shadow of Hurricane Katrina in which he and his rivals fought over the frustratingly slow pace of recovery from the storm and struggled to envision the future of the much-diminished Crescent City.

It was an election in which, unusually, the realities of the campaign issues were vividly reflected in the voters' everyday experience: whole neighbourhoods bereft of their old residents and filled with abandoned buildings, waterlogged cars still sitting by the sides of roads, litter and waste left uncollected.

Mr Nagin was pummelled by his rivals for what they called his incompetence and his excessive willingness to pin the blame for his own shortcomings on state and federal officials.

In the end, though, the incumbent proved just adept enough to squeak home by reviving his diverse political base - predominantly poor African Americans, along with white business owners, and middle-of-the-road voters attracted by his independence from Louisiana's entrenched political machines.

In the final run-off, held yesterday, Mr Nagin won 52 per cent of the vote, compared with 48 per cent for his strongest challenger, Louisiana's Lieutenant Governor, Mitch Landrieu.

Reflecting the politics of their city, both men are Democrats, with similar basic ideologies.

There, however, all similarities ceased, at least for the duration of campaign season.

Mr Nagin became closely identified with his fellow African Americans, whose allegiance he largely held, while Mr Landrieu - the son of a former New Orleans mayor and a member of a prominent Louisiana political dynasty - was seen, at least initially, as the vanguard of an attempted white "takeover" of the city, in which business interests would trump the creation of housing and jobs for the hundreds of thousands of African Americans forced to flee their homes after Katrina.

The primary election, held last month, threatened to turn the campaign into the stuff of racial and political dynamite, as Mr Nagin faced more than 20 challengers.

In the run-off, however, both surviving candidates focused on coalition-building and appealing to each other's core constituencies.

They ended up sounding remarkably cordial - acknowledging that working together to rebuild New Orleans was more important than anything.

"This election is over, and it's time for this community to start the healing process," Mr Nagin said in a characteristically upbeat victory speech.

"It's time for us to stop the bickering. It's time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian. It's time for us to be one New Orleans."

He even took time to thank President Bush, along with other politicians he has previously blasted for letting his city down in its hour of need.

He said the White House was making good on its promise to help in the rebuilding, and suggested he and the President were "probably the most vilified politicians in the country".

In the wake of multiple criticisms from all sides - that he failed to organise a proper evacuation before the storm, that he was more interested in grandstanding than building alliances with key state and federal agencies, that his city managers were simply unqualified to deliver on basic logistical promises - the Mayor indicated he would shake up his staff considerably as his second term begins and broaden its political make-up.

The election itself was almost overwhelmed by the logistical challenges posed by Katrina, and the extensive flooding that followed as the levees protecting New Orleans broke and the city filled with water like a bathtub.

The schedule originally called for the newly elected mayor to take office on May 1, but both the primary and the run-off had to be postponed as officials grappled with a multitude of questions about absentee balloting and even the possibility of setting up polling stations in other states where many city residents have been forced to re-establish themselves.

In the end, out-of-state voting was disallowed, and candidates decided against their initial impulse to travel to Houston and other cities to campaign.

Displaced residents either voted in other locations around Louisiana, or else sent in absentee ballots by mail or fax.

- INDEPENDENT