New Orleans elections postponed

New Orleans’ elections for mayor and City Council, scheduled for next February, have been postponed for up to eight months because of the damage and dislocation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Governor Kathleen Blanco took the decision after Louisiana’s top elections official said polling stations have not been rebuilt and hundreds of thousands of voters remained scattered across the United States.

Secretary of State Al Ater said he needed to ensure poll workers were in place and polling stations and absentee voting systems were ready for an election he called “the most important in that city’s life”.

“The new administration, the new council, the new people that will be elected will be in charge of making decisions affecting billions and billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives,” Ater said.

He said the election should be held no later than September 30.

The highest profile race is for mayor. Incumbent Ray Nagin has received both criticism and compliments for his handling of the Katrina disaster. He has not formally announced whether he will seek re-election.

Ater laid much of the blame for the delay on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he said had not provided “a penny” of the 2 million dollars (£1.2 million) his office requested to pay for voting machines and an upgrade to New Orleans’ absentee voting system.

Ater said Fema also took until this week to respond to his October request for a list of addresses of Louisiana residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina, so they can be informed of how to vote from out of state.

“Our job would have been a lot easier if Fema had been more forthright and more forthcoming,” Ater said.