To grab the seat, Mamdani first beat incumbent Cuomo in the June DP preliminaries, and he (Cuomo) decided to stand as an independent where he was demoralized by Mamdani on Tuesday.
The 34-year-old Ugandan Zohran Kwame Mamdani, son of long time renowned Makerere University don, Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, is Mayor of America’s largest city of New York, as of Tuesday night when he was officially declared so after trouncing Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa who emerged in third position.
As New Yorkers were celebrating Mamdani’s victory for the hope in his drastic changes especially in taxation on houses, transport, health and in other sectors, US President Donald Trump was seething with anger and threatened tax cuts to stifle what he called Mamdani’s radical policies.
Mamdani, subscribing to the Democratic Party, and born in Kampala on October 18th 1991, has made history as not only the first Moslem to take that seat, but also as the first person born in Africa and with an origin south of Asia to be elected to that prestigious position of Mayor of New York City.
To grab the seat, Mamdani first beat incumbent Cuomo in the June DP preliminaries, and he (Cuomo) decided to stand as an independent where he was demoralized by Mamdani on Tuesday.
At the age of five, his parents shifted from Uganda and relocated to South Africa from where they again shifted to New York City in the US when he was seven years. His major campaign ground especially among the youth was the promise to make New City affordable to live in by everybody.
He promised to waive taxes on buses and houses, and to extract taxes from the extra rich people. His words condemning Israel did not go down well with Trump whereupon he ignited a campaign to destroy his popularity. He is also on record for having threatened to block enforcement services from arresting foreigners, which made him very popular.
He further attacked Trump for allegedly making statements running counter to the rule of law, by for instance, gagging New Yorkers with threats of arrest for saying anything not pleasant to him (Trump).
Mamdani is a lawyer and he replaces Eric Adams, a Republican who stayed in power for two terms.
