Scandal Clouds Crucial Navajo Election : Indians: Confusion and doubts about the 15 candidates have produced a quiet campaign. Tribal government corruption could be the deciding issue.

Like many Navajos, 68-year-old Eva Haswood is confused by the choices she faces in Tuesday’s Navajo Nation primary election--and she is not getting much help from those running for office.

With 15 faces in this year’s race for leader of the country’s largest Indian tribe, Haswood says that she has no idea who all the candidates are, much less what they’ll do for her.

Of course, there are the familiar front-runners, known as The Big 3: interim Navajo President Leonard Haskie, 44; suspended chairman Peter MacDonald, 62, and former chairman Peterson Zah, 53.

Haswood says that Navajo politics were different in the old days before Haskie, MacDonald and Zah were on the scene.

“We would happily vote because there were no bitter feelings,” she said through a Navajo interpreter. “Now there’s so much uncertainty. We wonder if we vote for a candidate, if it will be a good vote.”

Haswood and her husband, Howard, 78, are similar to other elderly Navajos. From the back of their pickup truck at this reservation town’s flea market, they can still bring in a little extra money by selling healing herbs, a buckskin that would make a fine pair of moccasins or an old bow and arrows.

With a couple of hundred buyers and sellers milling around on a Friday afternoon, it’s a place that should now be ripe with political gossip and chitchat, especially with the first of two elections fast approaching. But that sort of activity is not taking place, either here or elsewhere on this 25,000-square-mile reservation.

This election is considered by many to be the most important in Navajo history. The two top vote-getters will square off in the Nov. 6 general election for president of the Navajo tribe.

By all accounts, it is the quietest Navajo election season in recent memory. The record of MacDonald--who faces three tribal trials, a federal grand jury investigation and other legal problems--has not been the subject of wide criticism by other candidates.

“There hasn’t been as much politicking,” said Bill Donovan, a 20-year observer of Navajo politics and acerbic columnist for the tribally owned Navajo Times. Earlier campaigns saw the slapped-together headquarters of the candidates constantly bustling with people, serving up the Navajo favorite of mutton stew and fry bread to the curious and the faithful, he says.

“You would have loudspeakers blasting out their positions on everything all during the day and all during the night,” Donovan said. “You don’t have that this time.”

Instead, the half a dozen “headquarters” clustered around the main intersection at the tribal capital of Window Rock, Ariz., have the appearance of so many abandoned fireworks stands on July 5. The best explanation for the calm, Navajos say, is either voter apathy or simply being fed up.

“I came out here in 1951 and to me this is the most important election since that time,” said Dr. Robert Roessel, 63, a teacher, school principal and author of Navajo books. “It’s got to translate into whether or not the Navajos will demand honesty and, if they don’t, then I think they’re in for a very difficult time.”

When questions of Navajo political scruples arise, not far behind are the names of MacDonald, whose image has been marred by scandal, and Zah, whose image is unsullied.

Just three weeks ago, MacDonald’s trial on 247 counts of violating tribal election laws stemming from his 1986 campaign, was delayed for a fifth time, leaving him free to campaign for a fifth term without the echo of negative testimony playing on the front page. He faces two other corruption trials in tribal court later this year.

A primary victory appears to be within his grasp, and some observers say that the odds favor him because his name is well known to Navajos. Throughout his troubles, beginning 17 months ago, MacDonald has retained a solid core of staunch supporters, including many loyal tribal council members.

“I think this MacDonald thing is far from over,” said Tom Chabin, a non-Indian businessman on the reservation. To non-Indians looking in, he says, the reelection of MacDonald “would indicate that people here accept corruption as a way of doing business on the reservation.”

A Zah win, he adds, could mean the return of Navajo preference in tribal hiring and contracting and an honest direction in tribal government.

However, Daniel Peaches, a tribal legislative aide and a former associate of the ousted chairman, says that Zah must show that he could unify the tribe.

Like MacDonald, Zah’s supporters are fiercely loyal. That leaves interim president Haskie appearing to be in the weakest position of the top three and scrambling for votes.