2025-11-12
Al-Raya Newspaper:
Mamdani Wins New York Mayoral Election
First Setback for Trump's Policies
Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral election in New York City, the largest American city, held on November 4th, becoming the first mayor of a major American city belonging to the progressive social democratic movement within the Democratic Party, the main competitor to the ruling Republican Party. He won by a large margin over his closest rivals.
Mamdani is a graduate of the Faculty of Arts and an American rapper, thirty-four years old. His father is of Indian origin, from a family nominally attributed to Islam, but in reality belongs to the Nizari Ismaili sect, which is not recognized by any of the known Islamic schools of thought as part of the Islamic Ummah. His father, Mahmoud Mamdani, is a well-known university lecturer in American universities, while his mother is a Hindu director. His family is dominated by secular concepts, and there is no influence of religion in their social relations.
Zohran Mamdani is considered a strong supporter of granting rights to homosexuals and related issues such as homosexuality and transgenderism. He personally collected tens of millions of dollars through groups belonging to his movement in the Democratic Party in favor of those homosexuals, arguing for the adoption of the idea of equal rights for all community groups.
Mamdani easily defeated all his competitors in the elections, despite the $22 million funding provided by a number of major billionaires to his main rival. Also, Trump's many threats against his candidacy did not affect his political rise.
This victory was considered the first political defeat for Republican candidates since Trump came to power, and represents the first real setback to Trump's policies that swept the American political scene in the first year of his rule.
The main reason for Mamdani's victory was not because he is (Muslim), an immigrant, or even a social democrat, but the real reason for his victory was the broad support of the Democratic Party for him, and the unity of all its movements in that support. Mamdani is originally an official member of the Democratic Party, although he belongs to the socialist left wing, the weakest wing of the party.
His electoral program, which supports the poor and supports public institutions, was one of the most important reasons for his victory in a society that has become fed up with the greedy capitalist sharks in New York City, who have impoverished the residents, plundered their public funds, and privatized everything in the country's economic capital for their benefit, and to increase the accumulation of their wealth.
Mamdani called for making healthcare free for all and supporting government education, making transportation free for all pre-primary students, freezing housing prices, raising workers' wages, preventing the deportation of immigrants, improving public facilities, and taking taxes only from the rich. He considered the Scandinavian model and the welfare economy as an example of his electoral program, and called for granting greater powers to workers in managing the state's economic facilities.
This program promoted by Mamdani is nothing more than a version of capitalist socialism that has nothing to do with Marxist socialism or communism, which Trump falsely accuses him of. He wants to return to capitalism flavored with some labor privileges, so he introduced some socialist patching to the capitalist system that has reached a terrible degree of encroachment in America, and has become subject to the control of a small handful of the wealthy who control all the joints of the largest economy in the world.
From a political standpoint, Mamdani, like other leaders of the social democratic movement, opposes AIPAC, the American Zionist lobby, supports granting rights to Palestinians, and considers the Jewish entity a part of the American capitalist lobby system allied with the big corporate lobbies that support the occupation army's aggressive practices in Gaza and the Middle East in general. Hatred of the Jewish entity's criminal practices has increased, especially after the accusation of genocide in Gaza was attached to it.
His statements against the actions of the Jewish entity resonated in the American street, which is already angry at the brutal practices of the Netanyahu government. The electoral base in New York found in him the right person to meet their ambition to reject the opportunistic American politicians biased towards the AIPAC organization, which has become one of the most hated lobbies in America.
These are the most important reasons for Mamdani's victory as mayor of New York, where the feelings of anger latent in the hearts of the poor against the hateful lobbies mixed with the tangible economic needs felt by the city's residents. They found in Mamdani's economic and political program their lost and desired goal, so he swept the votes and surpassed the political money spent by the hateful lobbies in buying consciences.
Mamdani's victory represents a turning point in American politics, as the wealthy were violently shocked by their failure in the New York elections, despite their experiences, wealth, and lobbies. The voice of youth, the poor, and the downtrodden triumphed.
This simple change in the equation in this large city carries within it a major radical change in American politics in the future, where the cards are shuffled, the rules of the game change, and young people freed from the control of corporations and stock exchanges begin to impose their political will on the giants and (old-timers) of American politics, and where the rule of substitution takes place, casting its shadows on an ancient system, gradually changing it, becoming closer to the real needs of the people, and no longer dependent on meeting the needs of the affluent elites.
This change will be reflected in the future on Muslims and all the oppressed in the world positively, as the American and Western colonial grip on the world will gradually shrink, the intensity of the international conflict will increase, new international powers will emerge, and America will be deprived of its monopoly on international politics.
By: Professor Ahmed Al-Khatwani
Source: Al-Raya Newspaper
