Traveller Plaited Hair leads in unofficial election results for Blood Tribe chief

Traveller Plaited Hair is set to replace Roy Fox as the chief of the Blood Tribe in southern Alberta, once the Wednesday election results are validated.

Unofficial results posted to social media late Wednesday show Plaited Hair receiving 771 votes, 158 more than his closest competitor.

That's 22 per cent of the 3,446 votes cast in the race with 10 candidates. Dozens more ran for council.

Blood Tribe member Autumn EagleSpeaker hosted four online forums leading up to the election.

"I think people are really hopeful for a new direction and leadership and for change," EagleSpeaker told CBC News in a Wednesday interview.

Like about half of the Blood Tribe population of 13,000, EagleSpeaker lives off the reserve, but she is invested in issues the community faces.

"Last year, we had over 100 [opioid] deaths alone, so people are seeking long-term solutions to this. They are building a facility to help with treatment, but that's one of many approaches that needs to take place to move the people forward," she said.

"They are looking for economic security."

WATCH | The Blood Tribe election results come in:

The Blood Tribe, also known as Kainai Nation, has been in the news this year for all the wrong reasons.

Jon Wells, a 42-year-old rodeo competitor from the nation, died in police custody in September after a late-night altercation at a south Calgary hotel. The unarmed man was the seventh Indigenous person to die in a police encounter in Canada in just three weeks.

• Canada broke its treaty promise, but Blood Tribe is barred from suing, Supreme Court rules
• 'Not some phantom person': community remembers Blood Tribe member Jon Wells

Hundreds in the community marched in protest of Wells's death.

Months earlier, First Nations in southern Alberta sounded the alarm over opioid death rates that were about eight times that of non-Indigenous people.

Meanwhile, EagleSpeaker says regardless of the election results, the process shows some real progress.

"Different people are stepping up," she said.

"For the first time, we see four different women that are running for chief, which is really significant. In the past, we have never had a female chief."