“Today is his own night,” Andrew Cuomo was forced to unleash. . With 93% of the votes in the first round of the New York Municipality qualifying elections, it garnered 43.5% of the votes, while Cuomo 36.4%.
Millenial, a Muslim, born in Uganda, with critical positions against Israel for Palestinian, Zohran Mamdani has been transformed into a political underdog into a politician who is very likely to become the next mayor.
Although the winner of the qualifiers is not guaranteed to become its 111st mayor, it is extremely likely in a city where registered superiority of the Republicans and is a traditional “democratic castle”.
Photo Credits: REUTERS/David ‘Dee’ Delgado
The current President, Eric Adams, who won the 2021 elections as a democratic but is going down as an independent candidate this year, is deeply unpopular in the city. Adams was accused of bribery and acceptance of foreign donations for the election campaign, but the charges were withdrawn in April after the Trump government intervened.
The “impressive political overthrow”, as the BBC describes it, came with 33 -year -old Zohran Mamdani denying the predictions by running a very targeted social media campaign.
The precious allies of Zohran Mamdani
As long as Andrew Cuomo had millions of dollars from donors such as Michael Bloomberg and Bill Akman, Zohran Mamdani relied on the base, the dedicated volunteers and the young activists from the Democratic Socialists.
By properly analyzing the “x -ray” of the electorate, he set up a modern campaign with his associates, recognizing that a large portion of it is shaping his views through social media.
Mamdani’s campaign raised $ 7 million from thousands of individual donors and mobilized an army of volunteers. He even described Quomo’s campaign as “the last example of billionaires and companies trying to acquire the elections”.
At the same time, Andrew Quomo, who had previously been charged with a series of scandals (facing, among other things, charges of sexual harassment, which he himself rejects, however), said Donald Trump would pass over Mamdani “like the hot knife”.
Mamdani secured the support of the Alexandria Okassio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders and the United Auto Workers.
“This race is not only symbolic for the future of New York, this race is symbolic for the future of our country,” Okassio-Cortez said during a pre-election rally with more than 2,000 supporters a week before the election.
“For so long we have had a political leadership, including the Democratic Party, that he just wanted to play safely. Young people have to save this country.”
The Guardian points out that Mamdani “won the audience with ease and clearly conveying his goals, convincingly speaking to voters from many different backgrounds. He was not just another activist-politician- proved to be a natural leader. “
Oour Revolution, the political organization set up by Sanders in 2016, said it mobilized its members in all five districts and sent more than 60,000 emails and texts to bring voters to the polls on behalf of Mamdani and Brad Lader.
“Zohran has made an excellent campaign. He put them with all the establishment, “Sanders said a few hours before the ballots were opened, inviting voters not to be discouraged by the heat and go to vote.
Who is who’s who’s Zohran Mamdani
Zohran Mamdani was born on October 18, 1991 in Kampala, Uganda and initially grew up in Cape Town, South Africa.
At the age of 7 he moved with his family to New York. He is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a distinguished post -Columbia professor at Columbia University and Mira Nair, an Indian director whose work includes “Mississippi Masala” and “Monsoon Wedding”.
With his mother, Mira Nair. Photo credits: Reuters/David ‘Dee’ Delgado
His middle name, Quame, took it in honor of Ghana’s first prime minister, Quame Nkrmama. She studied at Bank Street School for Children and the Bronx High School of Science.
He studied Africana Studies at the Bowdoin College, where he co -founded the local branch of Students for Justice in Palestine and participated in movements against imperialism and in favor of social justice. In 2018 he acquired American citizenship.
Before dealing with politics, he worked as a housing prevention consultant, helping low -paid owners to avoid evictions. This experience brought him a systemic housing market inequalities and pushed him into politics.
With his mother, wife and father after the announcement of the results. Photo credits: Reuters/David ‘Dee’ Delgado
Mamdani is a lover of hip-hop music and rapper. In 2016, under the artistic nickname “Young Cardamom”, he collaborated with rapper Hab and in 2019, released a single “Nani” under the new nickname “Mr. Cardamom. “
Mamdani won a four -year -old active member in a close qualifying election of the state assembly in 2020. He joined a small group of albani legislators belonging to the branch of the Democratic Socialists of America in New York.
Prior to his municipal campaign, it became a front -page headline in 2021, when he participated in a 15 -day hunger strike of New York taxi drivers, demanding relief from excessive debt.
During the election campaign, he spoke extensively about the start of the free use of urban buses, which helped to start. The pilot program lasted a year and was not renewed.
However, his colleagues had to admit that his ideas helped move the ideological center of the convention to the left.
Has a program
Mamdani, who identifies himself as a Democratic Socialist, has adopted an agenda that focuses on reducing the costs that, he says, “crushes workers”.
He has been in favor of freezing rental rentals (freezing of rents in 1 million apartments), free public bus travel, public child care for children under six years and creating municipal groceries who will buy and sell prices.
He has also supported the minimum wage increase to $ 30 an hour by 2030. He says he will pay for his plans by increasing the tax rate of business to 11.5% and the taxation of New Yorkers earning more than $ 1 million a year with a single rate of 2%.
Mamdani will be confronted with the persistent reaction of New York’s establishment, with the dominant factor in Governor Katie Hotsul, who has already rejected his proposals to increase taxes to the rich.
Photo Credits: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
Also, the idea of free urban buses requires Congress approval, which shows how difficult it will be to implement its program.
As Benjamin Oreskes of the New York Times says, “part of his success is due to his ability to convert the complexity of voters’ economic problems into comprehensive political solutions.
He did not avoid great ideas and identified himself as a Democratic Socialist, even when the national Democrats were trying to adopt more moderate positions on various issues.
And instead of spending complicated political concepts, he presented understandable ideas, even if his opponents mocked them as skyscrapers: their rents will freeze. Buses will be free.
Rich taxes would increase and the cost of child care would be reduced to zero.
The simplicity of these ideas denies the difficulty of implementing them. Even so, they were popular with the New Yorkers who were looking for a politician who really understood what it was like to live in narrow apartments and make long metro moves to get to work. “
His views on Israel and Gaza
Zohran Mamdani has long been a strong criticism of the Israeli government and the treatment of the Palestinians. In 2023, he introduced a bill to end the tax -free regime of New York Charity Organizations that have ties with Israeli settlements that violate international human rights law.
The bill was considered “not promoted” by the leadership of the assembly and did not go anywhere.
Photo Credits: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
He has strongly criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and has expressed his support for the boycott movement, divestment and sanctions. He has also stated that he believes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be arrested.
He has also stated that there is no space for anti -Semitism in New York, adding that if elected, it will increase funding to combat hatred crimes.
The first Muslim Mayor of New York?
If he is elected in the fall, Mamdani will become the first Muslim Mayor of New York, with his campaign finding a fertile ground in about a million Muslims in the city.
The candidate regularly visited mosques and made his faith central to his campaign.
The focus on his ancestry also became a way to emphasize the multicultural nature of his coalition and the city he hoped to command.
“We know that standing publicly as a Muslim also means sacrificing the security we can sometimes find in the shadows,” he said in an interview.
Zohran Mamdani addresses his voters a few minutes after the announcement of the results.
“According to Nelson Mandela’s words: it always seems impossible until it is. My friends, it was done. And you are the ones you did. I have the honor to be the Democratic candidate for the New York City Hall. “
With information from BBC, Guardian, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today News
