State: Miami Mayor Carollo fails to make runoff

Former Mayor Maurice Ferre was headed for a runoff election with Manny Diaz, a lawyer who represented the Miami family of Elian Gonzalez. The runoff is set for Tuesday. With all 100 precincts reporting, Ferre received 31.4 percent of the vote, or 14,310 votes. Diaz had 23.7 percent, or 10,806 votes, to Carollo's 23.2 percent, or 10,581 votes. Carollo said he would not seek a recount.

A runoff election is called when no candidate receives 50.1 percent of the vote, according to the Miami-Dade Elections Office.

None of the seven other candidates garnered more than 7 percent.

Former Mayor Xavier Suarez, who defeated Carollo in 1997 but was later replaced by Carollo because of a voter fraud scandal, got about 5 percent of the vote.

Carollo has been embroiled in a year of controversy that included his arrest after a domestic dispute.

Carollo, 46, initially said he would not seek re-election in an attempt to save his failing marriage. But he changed his mind in March, citing progress made during his four years in office.

Carollo credits himself with pulling the city out of a multimillion-dollar deficit and lowering the crime rate. The Cuban exile community also heralded the Cuban-born mayor for support for anti-Castro protests close to the American Airlines arena for the Latin Grammys. Carollo's position played a part in the organizers' decision to move the show back to Los Angeles in August.

Some Cuban-Americans at the voting polls praised Carollo's solid record fighting corruption as a reason the current mayor should stay.

"Carollo is the only one that has not had a finger pointed at him," said Jose Suit, 57.

The majority of Miami's population of 375,000 people is Hispanic -- almost 53 percent -- and a majority of that population is Cuban.

Suarez, a Cuban-American born in Cuba who grew up in Washington, served as mayor from 1985 to 1993.

Carollo came to office in 1996 after a special election was held following the death of Mayor Steve Clark. In 1997, Suarez defeated Carollo but the court ousted Suarez four months later when all 4,500 absentee ballots were declared invalid. Carollo was reinstated.

But Carollo has had his own share of problems.

In August, the State Attorney's Office dropped misdemeanor battery charges against Carollo after he allegedly hit his wife in the head with a tossed cardboard tea container during an argument at their home in February. Carollo has denied intentionally hitting his wife, who had filed for a divorce before the incident.

Carollo was notorious in the 1980s for his political stunts and for often claiming a communist conspiracy among his opponents. While a commissioner, Carollo showed up at a news conference to endorse then-Mayor Ferre only to take the microphone and blast Ferre.

Ferre, a native of Puerto Rico, spent 12 years as Miami mayor from 1973 to 1985. Ferre is credited for guiding the city through heavy periods of growth.

Cuban-American Dora Perez voted along with her husband for Ferre.

"I want a new mayor. I want a change," Perez said at a poll entrance. "I'm tired of what we have now . . . of the same routine."

On Miami Beach, former state Rep. Elaine Bloom outpolled Miami Beach Commissioners David Dermer and Nancy Liebman and business development consultant Oscar L. Hernandez in a race to succeed Mayor Neisen Kasdin.

With all 32 precincts counted, Bloom had 5,553 votes, or 44 percent, and Dermer had 4,863 votes for 38 percent. Liebman's 1,780 votes amounted to 14 percent and Hernandez's 458 votes represented 4 percent.

Kasdin supported Bloom, who served in the state Legislature for 18 years.

Bloom, 64, lost to Republican U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw in November's election for Shaw's House seat.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk