By Alessia Passafiume THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA- After a late night and long morning of voting, deal-making, concession speeches and tense last-minute pleading, Cindy Woodhouse was elected Thursday as the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. In her new post, Woodhouse, 40, faces the daunting task of uniting more than 600 chiefs after years of bitter internal strife, punctuated with complaints from chiefs that the assembly often neglects their best interests. That’s why Woodhouse and David Pratt, the challenger whose strong showing throughout 15 hours of voting Wednesday kept him in the race, took to the Ottawa convention centre floor in a hand-in-hand show of unity. “I knew it wasn’t doing our convention any good to prolong it when we’re facing a housing crisis, when we’re facing…