CONCHO, Okla. – Who will run the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ election this fall is one more issue facing a divided tribe.

After their political alliance dissolved more than two years ago, elected leaders Janice Prairie Chief-Boswell and Leslie Wandrie-Harjo each formed her own government, claiming to be the legitimate authority over the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

Now, with the candidates’ filing period coming up May 1, the Legislature affiliated with Wandrie-Harjo’s administration formally filed a request with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to oversee the tribes’ election. A letter was delivered to the superintendent of the BIA’s Concho agency and mailed to Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn on Jan. 31.

“We now face a future with two governments and two elections for an indeterminate amount of time,” Legislature Speaker Jane Nightwalker wrote. “We would therefore like to formally request and authorize you and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to take whatever measures necessary to conduct a fair, unbiased and indisputable 2013 election process.”

In the letter, Nightwalker offered to use some of the tribes’ frozen assets to pay for the BIA’s costs to conduct the election. More than $6 million of the tribes’ money is currently under the supervision of a Custer County, Okla., district court judge, who has maintained that the funds could be at least partially released to programs and services that would directly impact the Cheyenne and Arapaho people.

The request is similar to one previously adopted by the tribal legislature affiliated with the Prairie Chief-Boswell administration. However, Lisa Liebl, spokeswoman for the Prairie Chief-Boswell administration, said Friday that a petition was being circulated to call a special council meeting in order to repeal that resolution. As per the Cheyenne and Arapaho constitution, a special meeting may be called if at least 150 adult tribal citizens sign a petition or at the request of five members of the Tribes’ eight-member Legislature.

“We are working on repealing that resolution because the BIA has not shown itself to be responsive enough to handle conducting an election,” Liebl said. “Instead, we are working on securing a third-party contractor to come in and conduct the election.”

Prairie Chief-Boswell and Wandrie-Harjo ran for office and were inaugurated together in January 2010, but their alliance dissolved over a series of allegations. Today, each maintains her own government – Boswell in Concho and Harjo in El Reno – complete with separate Legislatures, election commissions and courts. Multiple appeals on the split and its implications are pending before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, but no timeline has been given on a ruling.

Candidates’ filing period closes June 1. The primary election is scheduled for Oct. 8 and the general election is scheduled for Nov. 5.