Navajo Nation presidential election, 2010
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Ben Shelly
The Navajo Nation presidential election of 2010 was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. Incumbent Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. was term-limited yet sought a third consecutive term, the Navajo Nation Supreme Court declined a third term for Shirley.
The top two vote earners in the presidential primary election, which was held on August 3, 2010, qualified for the general election. New Mexico State Senator Lynda Lovejoy and outgoing Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly respectively came in first and second in the primary over nine other candidates. They faced each other in the general election.
This was the first Navajo Nation election in which both presidential candidates, Lovejoy and Shelly, are residents of the Eastern part of the Navajo Nation. 2010 also marked the first time that a woman earned the most votes in the Navajo presidential primary.
Ben Shelly became the first Vice President of the Navajo Nation to be elected president. If elected, Lynda Lovejoy would have become the first female president of the Navajo Nation.
Joe Shirley Jr. was re-elected in the 2006 presidential election to a second term over challenger Lynda Lovejoy. On July 9, 2010, the Navajo Nation Supreme Court ruled that Shirley could not seek a third consecutive term as president.
In 2008, President Shirley launched a government reform, that would reduce the Navajo Nation Council from 88 members to 24. On December 15, 2009 the Navajo people voted in favor of reducing the Navajo Nation Council from 88 to 24. This will lead to a smaller council which may be implemented for the 2010 election depending on a ruling from the Navajo Supreme Court on April 20, 2010.
The fight to reduce the Council has made the race more competitive than in previous years and the stance against the Council reduction fought for by certain Council members will make their prospects tough mirroring a similar election in 2002 where the voters removed over 67% of the Council incumbents.
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