On Nov. 4, New York City’s mayoral election took place. The democrat’s nominee, Zohran Mamdani, beat former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent. Mamdani, who received 50.4% of the votes, is set to be the first Muslim and South Asian man to hold this position.
This 34-year-old democratic socialist from Queens, N.Y., has directed his message to the youth and new left-wing voters. His campaign energised progressives and won over the voters who looked for a fresher politician.
Mamdani was born in Uganda to parents of Indian descent and earned a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College. In college, he co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
To showcase his Muslim faith and make it part of his campaign, he visited mosques regularly and sent out a campaign video in Urdu about New York City’s cost-of-living crisis.
Although he has been called a communist by various prominent political figures, he rejects the label.
One of Mamdani’s main running points was on his ‘rent freeze plan.’ Mamdani’s housing plan relies on freezing rent for four years on the city’s one million rent-stabilised apartments. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan is $4,778, which was almost a 20% increase from 2022.
Mamdani also plans on creating a network of city-owned grocery stores, making public buses free, lowering the cost of childcare, raising the corporate tax rate, adding a tax to New Yorkers who make high income and to raise the minimum wage.
Many of these plans have been deemed unattainable, far-fetched or ignorant of logistics and illogical in terms of government funding.
In a city that has over 1.7 million Jewish households, Mamdani’s pro-Palestine support remains more radical than most Democratic establishments. Before Mamdani ran for mayor, as an assemblyman, he introduced a bill to end charities with ties to Israeli settlements that violate international human rights law. Mamdani has also called out Prime Minister Netanyahu to be arrested for committing genocide in Gaza.
In four years there will be the next New York City mayoral election.
