"Mercredi Wins Election as Chief of Chiefs"

WINNIPEG - Ovide Mercredi started his new post as national chief of the Assembly of First Nations early today by telling Canadians they shouldn't be frightened by native demands for rights.

"We will approach them in the way in which our ancestors approached them - with generosity," Mercredi, 45, said after a narrow, come-from-behind victory over fellow Manitoban Phil Fontaine.

"We will remind them that we have a rich heritage of nation-to-nation, treaty-to-treaty, government-to-government relations, and we will assure them that by reclaiming that past we will not destroy their society.

"We will tell the Canadian people as we have done before that justice for our communities, for our people, for all first nations, is justice for them."

It was almost 2 a.m. Winnipeg time when Mercredi was sworn in as head of the organization and presented with the red ceremonial bundle held by the national chief.

He sat cross-legged with his shoes off as elders performed a sacred sweetgrass ceremony and placed a blanket over his slender shoulders.

An hour earlier the leadership of the national organization for status Indians was finally settled after two ballots with just Mercredi and Fontaine running.

On the final ballot Mercredi got 271 votes, two more than the 269 he needed to get 60 per cent of the vote which was needed to declare a winner. Fontaine received 177 votes.