‘Unprecedented moment’: Swearing-in ceremony for new MHA Nation Chairman Darwin D. Williams to be open to the public

Williams received 57% of the vote on Tuesday (1,721 ballots were returned in his favor), defeating Fred Fox, who received 1,298 votes. Williams will replace Mark Fox as chairman, who, since 2014, has served three consecutive four-year terms. MHA Nation does not have term limits for its chairman, and the seat opened up when Mark Fox decided not to run.

Williams told supporters Tuesday night that his win was about change. “You own this, you showed this today,” he said. “You can’t make this with money. You take this with your heart and your dedication to your little ones and your elders.”

His campaign manager, Maloni Fox (no relation to Williams’s opponent or the outgoing chairman), told Buffalo’s Fire that she asked to work for Williams because his message about change resonated with her values. Fox, an MHA citizen that lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said she traveled to North Dakota to help with the campaign and to vote in-person.

“It wasn't an easy process to get home to make my voice heard, but it was really important,” she said. “I know that my story is not an isolated story. There was a really amazing influx of off-reservation voters that made it a priority to come home.”

According to unofficial results released last night by the MHA canvassing board, 3,019 people voted in person. Nine voters cast absentee ballots. The tribal election division said it will release unofficial results on its website today at 1 p.m. CST and will make those returns official by 3 p.m. in time for the swearing-in ceremony for Williams.

“He has an open door policy,” Maloni Fox said. “It may not be immediate, but we are going to create channels for people to understand and see the way that the council works and how decisions are made.”

Part of that includes opening up the tribal chambers to the public for the swearing-in, something Fox and other supporters said they’ve never personally witnessed.

“Historically the tribal council chambers have been a closed door entity. It's an unprecedented moment,” she said. “This is a new experience for a lot of people.”