The power of incumbency carried the day as three current Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees retained their seats Tuesday night.
With results from all precincts tallied, incumbents John Waihee IV and Rowena Akana were the top vote-getters among the six candidates vying for three at-large seats, while Carmen Hulu Lindsey, another incumbent, topped her challenger, Mahealani Wendt, for the Maui seat.
A fourth incumbent, Peter Apo, didn’t face a race Tuesday because he won the Oahu seat outright in the August primary, garnering 56 percent of the votes cast for that position.
One newcomer was elected Tuesday to the board: Lei Ahu Isa, principal broker at Hilton Grand Vacations Club Hawaii.
She finished third among the at-large candidates, edging out Mililani Trask, a former OHA trustee, by roughly 10,000 votes.
The top three at-large vote-getters claim those seats.
The board has nine members, but their four-year terms are staggered. Only five faced elections this year.
The trustees oversee a state agency that is dedicated to the betterment of Native Hawaiians.
Tuesday’s election came at a key juncture as Hawaiians continued to wrestle with the dicey process of political self-determination.
OHA is in the midst of a controversial nation-building effort, which some Hawaiians oppose because it is a state-initiated process. They believe Hawaiians, not the state, should determine how and when to pursue political self-determination.
Several of the candidates said voters were more focused on jobs, economic development and affordable housing for Hawaiians than the question of what political status to pursue.
"I think the everyday living of our people seems to be more of a concern," said Lindsey.
Akana, one of the current trustees, said she believed the power of incumbency was more of a factor in Tuesday’s election than the self-determination issue.
"Voters didn’t seem to be concerned about that," Akana said.
Like in the primary election, Waihee, the son of a former governor, finished as the top vote-getter among the at-large candidates.
Asked what he attributed that to, Waihee said, "It seems like this year the politics of consensus seemed to be trending," and he believed voters recognized that he was a good team player who sought consensus.
On the political status question, candidate Kelii
Akina, chief executive of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, gave voters a clear choice. He strongly opposed the pursuit of federal recognitions, saying it was time to stop dividing people by race.
But his message didn’t appear to resonate with the majority of voters: Akina finished fifth out of the six at-large candidates.
OHA is participating in a state-initiated process in which Hawaiians registered for the nation-building effort will elect delegates to represent them at an April governance convention.
