In a sign of the times for his storm-stricken city, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin campaigned for re-election on Saturday in Houston.

Nagin is one of 23 candidates in one of the more unusual mayoral elections in US history because most of the voters now live in other cities.

Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans on August 29, scattered almost all the nearly half-million residents of the Louisiana city across the nation and only an estimated 190,000 have returned. The storm killed about 1,300 people and destroyed some 300,000 homes on the Gulf Coast.

Houston, 560 kilometres to the west, has 150,000 evacuees, or almost as many New Orleanians as New Orleans.

So it was that Nagin, a Democrat who was elected mayor in 2002, was in Houston seeking votes for the April 22 ballot.

"It's a local election that is on a national stage, which is very unusual. Nobody's ever had to go through this," he told reporters.

In a speech organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People civil rights group, Nagin discussed the recovery of New Orleans and explained the complicated absentee voting procedures for those who have not returned to the city.

Nagin, who sparked controversy recently by saying New Orleans would become a "chocolate city" again, told the mostly black audience that the election could bring a sea change to New Orleans politics, which has been dominated by blacks for more than two decades.

"There are 23 candidates running for mayor. Very few of them look like us," he said. "There's a potential to be a major change in the political structure in New Orleans."

A recent poll showed Nagin, who is black, trailing Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, a member of one of Louisiana's most prominent white political families and a New Orleans mayoral candidate, by 35 per cent to 25 per cent.

Political experts say Nagin's re-election chances may hinge on his ability to mobilize the black evacuee vote because many of those who have returned to New Orleans are whites who lived in the French Quarter and Uptown sections largely untouched by Katrina.

Source: China Daily