By KT Reporter
Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the son of prominent Ugandan academic Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, is the Mayor-Elect of New York, the largest city in America. Mamdani beat his closest challenger, former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani’s victory was announced at around 6 am Uganda time after counting most of the votes.
At 33 years old, Mamdani is the youngest person to have been elected mayor in the history of New York City. He is also the first Muslim to ever hold that position. Mamdani’s win has rankled establishment politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties in America. Mamdani, who openly calls himself a Democratic Socialist, campaigned on increasing taxes on the very rich people in New York while subsidizing rent, the cost of groceries, transportation, and child care for the working people.
New York, which has a Gross Domestic Product of three trillion dollars, which is bigger than the GDP of all of Africa, which is about two trillion dollars, has the highest concentration of billionaires anywhere on earth. These Mamdani policies have made him a target of billionaires who lined behind independent candidate Cuomo to ensure that he is defeated.
Mamdani beat Cuomo in the Democratic Party primaries but insisted on contesting as an independent. In the winding days of the campaign, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, two of the most powerful men in America, all lined up behind Cuomo. Trump warned that if Mamdani wins, he will be forced to cut funding to New York. For his part, Musk said if New Yorkers elect Mamdani, billionaires will be forced to leave the city. However, this fear-mongering has not stopped New Yorkers from electing Mamdani.
His support cut across religious and ethnic divides. Although he promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes, he has committed in Gaza during the two-year genocide, this has not deterred Jews from overwhelmingly voting for him. Mamdani’s support for Palestinian rights has been interpreted by some establishment politicians as antisemitic. In fact, yesterday, President Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform that any Jew who votes for Mamdani is stupid.
Mamdani is the only child of Prof. Mahmood Mamdani and Mira Nair, a renowned American filmmaker. Prof. Mamdani, until 2022, was the Director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research, a position he had held since 2010. He had previously taught at Makerere University before he moved to Tanzania and South African universities. Currently, he is a Professor of Government at Columbia University in New York.
Recently, Prof. Mamdani released a new book titled “Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni and the Creation of the Ugandan State.” In the book, Mamdani postulates that Museveni has been worse than Amin in the way he has presided over Uganda.
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