"Mercredi Re-Elected"

SASKATOON - In the North, teenaged girls blush red and shyly ask for Ovide Mercredi's autograph.

In the south, his has become the most recognizable Indian face in the country - his fine-featured good looks and lawyerly reason winning many non-aboriginal people over to his cause.

With his feet firmly planted in both worlds, Mercredi early today won a second term as leader of the most powerful native group in Canada after three ballots.

Mercredi received 273 votes votes compared to 175 for Wally McKay, chief of Sachigo Lake in northwestern Ontario.

That gave the advocate of native self-government more than the 60 per cent support he needed in the race to head the group representing Canada's 533,000 status Indians.