The election of a left-wing Muslim immigrant, who plans to increase taxes on big business and the rich, to run the largest and most important city in the United States represents a defining political moment.
Zohran Mamdani’s easy win in the New York City mayoral race has captured global attention. He has earned praise for giving a voice to the marginalised, but he has been criticised for his expansive proposals for social and economic change in the global centre of capitalism.
Zohran Mamdani’s ascent was helped by his indefatigable campaigning.Credit: Bloomberg
Mamdani, the Democratic candidate, defeated former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who ran as an independent after losing the party primary to Mamdani in June. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, failed to secure a primary vote percentage in the double digits.
Mamdani, 34, is New York’s second-youngest mayor. He is also the first Muslim and only the second democratic socialist to hold the post.
As North America correspondent Michael Koziol told readers, the extraordinarily gifted communicator campaigned chiefly on addressing New York’s affordability problems. He plans to build social housing, freeze rents on rent-stabilised apartments, make buses free and introduce universal free childcare for all children under five.
How to pay for it? By levying a 2 per cent city income tax on anyone earning more than $US1 million a year ($1.5 million), and raising the top corporate tax rate from 7.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent, the same as neighbouring New Jersey.
His critics had drawn attention to his past support for the “defund the police” movement, and they had queried his commitment to keeping the city safe. They had also pointed to his remarks about Israel and his refusal to condemn the phrase “globalise the intifada”. While Mamdani’s campaign certainly deserved scrutiny, some criticism regrettably veered into full-blown Islamophobia.
As The New York Times noted, Mamdani’s ascent was also powered by indefatigable campaigning.
“He made bringing his economic message to the city’s hundreds of thousands of Muslims an important part of his operation, visiting more than 50 mosques, some multiple times, and hosting phone banks in Urdu, Arabic and Bangla, among other languages,” the Times wrote.
