Nygren seeks reelection after recall effort, harassment claim, council clashes

Buu Nygren is asking Navajo voters for four more years while defending a first term defined as much by conflict as by delivery. He says he has carried out 90 percent of what he promised in 2022, but his reelection bid now lands in a crowded race with 16 candidates and a July 21 primary that will test whether voters remember governing results or the political turmoil around him.

The recall drive that once threatened to force him from office fell short in March 2025. Organizers led by Debbie Nez-Manuel, a former executive director of the Navajo Nation Division of Human Resources who was dismissed in June 2024, filed 11,193 signatures, far below the 29,803 valid signatures needed under Navajo election rules. That failure removed one path to an early judgment on Nygren’s leadership, but it did not end the broader fight over his record.

Another flashpoint came from inside his own administration. Vice President Richelle Montoya publicly raised a harassment allegation tied to an Aug. 17, 2023 incident during the Navajo Nation Council’s spring session on April 15, 2024, then repeated the claim on Facebook Live the next day. The Navajo Nation Department of Justice opened an outside investigation on April 19, 2024. By Dec. 16, 2024, preliminary findings from the Navajo Nation Office of the Attorney General said the claim was “not warranted,” and that the incident did not amount to a Navajo criminal-law violation.

The political strain widened again in November 2025, when Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley introduced legislation seeking to remove both Nygren and Montoya from office. Curley has since entered the presidential race herself, making her one of three women among the 16 candidates who filed by the April 22 deadline. Ballot positions were drawn on April 23, and each presidential or vice presidential candidate paid a $1,500 filing fee.

Nygren, who defeated Jonathan Nez by more than 3,500 votes in 2022 and became the youngest person ever elected Navajo Nation president, enters the contest with a record voters in Apache County and across the Navajo Nation will weigh closely. Voter registration for the primary closes June 4, absentee voting begins June 15, and the July 21 election will decide whether Nygren’s first term is remembered for progress, for persistent infighting, or for both.