White voters turn against Mayor of New Orleans

The water may have receded long ago, but the political fallout from Hurricane Katrina continues to beset New Orleans after a highly controversial mayoral election at the weekend saw white voters desert the incumbent, Ray Nagin, forcing him into what is likely to be a tightly contested run-off next month.

Mr Nagin, who won office in 2002 largely thanks to a wave of support from white voters, failed to repeat his success on Saturday. He won barely 10 per cent of the vote in districts of the city that are predominantly white and African-Americans failed to support him in sufficiently large numbers.

With 38 per cent of the vote, Mr Nagin fell short of the majority needed to avoid a run-off, to be held on 20 May, against Mitch Landrieu, Louisiana's lieutenant-governor. Although Mr Landrieu garnered only 29 per cent, he is well placed to secure the votes cast for others now eliminated from the race.

The voting was unusual, because more than half of those who lived in New Orleans before the storm hit on 29 August last year have not returned home.

About 20,000 people now living outside Louisiana participated through absentee ballots while others were able to vote in satellite polling stations around the state. Some civic rights groups fought to have the vote postponed, saying it was unworkable.

The results reflect the deep demographic changes in the city that resulted from the hurricane. Most of those who have abandoned the city are African-Americans.

The ascent of Mr Landrieu, who is white, may signal the end of decades of black dominance in the city's politics. Not since his father, Moon Landrieu, was mayor in the 1970s has New Orleans been led by a white mayor.

It has been the white population that has been most critical of Mr Nagin's performance in the wake of the storm. Moreover, many may have turned against him because of remarks he made in January when he said that God would ensure that New Orleans would once more emerge as a "chocolate city".

Political experts predicted that Mr Landrieu, whose sister, Mary Landrieu, is a US senator, will pick up many of the votes cast at the weekend for Ron Forman, a local businessman who came third with 17 per cent. Mr Forman has yet to endorse either man for the run-off.

It is widely assumed that Mr Nagin, who was a successful executive for a local cable television company before coming to office, will need to focus on reassuring the white population which, since the storm, has become the majority in the city.

"His one shot is to get enough of the whites who liked him four years ago to like him again," Elliott Stonecipher, a political analyst, commented.