RIO DE JANEIRO: London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Wednesday (Nov 5) hailed Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race as “a unbelievable win” and congratulated New Yorkers for selecting “hope over concern.” Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, scooped the mayoral election by vowing to hike taxes on companies and the rich to pay for bold left-wing insurance policies resembling frozen rents, free childcare and free metropolis buses.
The win will set up Mamdani as the primary Muslim mayor of the most important US metropolis, following within the footsteps of Khan who grew to become the primary Muslim mayor of a significant Western capital when he gained his first of three election victories within the British capital in 2016.
“I think the explanation why Zohran gained by such an enormous majority was folks might relate to what he was saying,” he advised Reuters. “Him being a Muslim is sort of inappropriate.” Like Mamdani, Khan stated he additionally confronted Islamophobia from opponents when he was first elected in 2016. His background additionally put him on the receiving finish of fierce criticism from US President Donald Trump, and the 2 males have clashed repeatedly in recent times. Trump has referred to as Khan a “stone chilly loser” and claimed he needed to impose Islamic Sharia regulation in London. Khan, who was re-elected in 2021 and 2024, stated in September that Trump was racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic.
“London, like New York, is a metropolis that’s liberal, multicultural, progressive, and likewise extremely profitable. We’re the antithesis of all the pieces that Donald Trump is about,” Khan stated. “You may see why President Donald Trump hates London, hates New York, and hates the truth that Londoners, like New Yorkers, have chosen hope over Donald Trump’s imaginative and prescient of concern.”
Khan mirrored on the parallels between his personal expertise and Mamdani’s, saying that each confronted “nationwide leaders who weren’t from our events and, frankly talking, hated us.” However, he added, “within the face of that adversity, you possibly can actually convey a metropolis collectively.”
Whereas mayors have to work with opposition leaders when it is of their metropolis’s greatest curiosity, Khan stated, that does not imply bowing to them.
“Don’t be scared to typically stand as much as a nationwide chief, notably if that nationwide chief is a bully.”
Khan, a human rights-trained lawyer and member of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Occasion, was in Brazil forward of the COP30 environmental assembly. Khan, who’s extra of a centrist than Mamdani, has made environmental coverage a central focus of his mayoralty, and sought to put money into inexpensive housing and transport throughout his tenures. However his critics, together with politicians in Britain and the US, say crime has surged on his watch.
