Hoffa Leads In Teamsters Vote

James P. Hoffa took a narrow lead in the first wave of ballots counted for the Teamsters presidency once held by his father. The full count will take days.

With 44,742 votes from the southern and eastern regions counted this morning, Hoffa led with 21,549 votes, or 49 percent. Tom Leedham, chief of the union's warehouse division, had 20,503, or 46 percent.

John Metz of St. Louis, who declared his candidacy but never campaigned, had 2,294 votes, or 5 percent.

Federal election officials hope to finish their region-by-region count of mailed ballots by Monday. They began counting Thursday and finished the southern region's 28,774 ballots, with Hoffa winning there by 1,085 votes.

Hoffa's team said the early results bode well for the election, since Hoffa lost the southern region in his 1996 bid for the union presidency.

Hoffa "was very pleased with the figures," his campaign manager, Thomas M. Pazzi, said Thursday night. "I continue to see this as our victory, but a close one."

The election for a new leader for the scandal-torn union drew only three in 10 Teamsters to cast a vote, federal election officials said. Michael Cherkasky, the court-appointed officer overseeing the election, estimated that more than 400,000 ballots from the United States and Canada were returned. Ballots were mailed to 1.4 million Teamsters last month.

Cherkasky expressed disappointment at the low participation, saying that "Americans in general, and maybe Canadians too, take for granted their right to franchise."

Counters verify that each envelope carries the identification number of a dues-paying member, then use computers to read the secret ballots. Ballots that cannot be read by computer are set aside to be read by tabulators later if necessary. Each campaign was allowed 23 observers.

Hoffa is the son of Jimmy Hoffa, whose legacy spurred a government crusade to stamp out organized crime within the union.

The elder Hoffa rose to the top of what was then the nation's largest union in 1957 and remained in power for a decade, until he was sent to prison for jury tampering and fraud. He sought to regain control of the union after he was released from prison, but he disappeared in June 1975. He is presumed to have been murdered by former Mafia associates.

In the current election, James P. Hoffa used superior financing and name recognition established through years of campaigning to win over many local union officials tired of the union's political infighting.

The younger Hoffa ran on a promise to reunify the Teamsters and "restore the power." Opponents questioned Hoffa's ties to some old-guard union leaders facing corruption charges.

Leedham, from the union's liberal wing, said if elected he would include rank-and-file members on all bargaining and grievance committees. He wants to maintain the focus on organizing and end union donations to political candidate and parties.

The election is being supervised by the government as part of a 1989 deal struck with the Justice Department to avoid racketeering charges and diminish the influence of organized crime.

Incumbent Ron Carey won the first election under government scrutiny in 1991 and was narrowly re-elected in 1996 over Hoffa. Carey was later ousted from office after investigators learned that his campaign benefited from an illegal fund-raising scheme. He was barred from the current rerun election.

Written By KALPANA SRINIVASAN