to-win-mamdani-weaved-socialist-islamic-message-together

It was not the “socialism” alone that helped Zohran Mamdani to win the election to the prestigious and powerful position of the Mayor of New York City. He played up the “socialistic” card while subtly appealing to the 7 lakh Muslims living in the city telling them he was one of them that saw him through. About 90 per cent Muslims voted for him.

 

Plus, the friendly mainstream media, the New York Times and CNN in particular, also played an important role in his victory. The day he won the primaries and defeated Andrew Cuomo to win the Democratic nomination, he was pronounced and proclaimed as the Mayor of the city. His Republican Curtis Silwa opponent was just a political weakling and his strongest opponent was a Democrat Cuomo only, who was fighting independently.

 

Mamdani’s victory was made a “foregone” conclusion as if it was a walkover, while actually it was a close contest as the final results revealed. The margin of 1.5 lakh votes, in a total turnout of over 20 lakhs is not really substantial particularly when the perception being created was that Mamdani’s victory was a “forgone conclusion” from day one.

 

Besides, votes in the New York City Mayor elections are not counted in a straight manner. It is the “ranked-choice voting” (RCV) system in which candidates getting least “first choice” votes get gradually eliminated and the second choice candidate who survives till the end, gets the second choice vote. It was never a “one-sided affair”. The perception of his “forgone victory” played an important role in Mamdani’s victory, as neutral and undecided voters are believed to mostly vote for the candidate they think is going to be the “winner”. That is because he proved to be a master and a powerful communicator who knew very well how to communicate his message.

 

New York City indeed is a Democratic stronghold. But Mamdani was not the “only Democrat” fighting. Cuomo was an old and seasoned Democrat belonging to a strong and powerful political dynasty. He has served as the Governor of the New York state for three terms and so has his father, Mario Mathew Cuomo, who also served as the New York Governor for three terms.

 

Had it not been for about seven lakh strong Muslim voters, who voted in huge proportion and over 90 per cent of them voting for Mamdani, the result might have been different. The Muslims, in fact, proved to be the “core base” for Mamdani.

 

While highlighting his “socialist policies”, he not only emphasised his Muslim identity, he overplayed it, thus completely consolidating his position among the Muslim community and it worked. Sending across a message in the public domain that he will make “halal” mandatory in New York, but personally denying it, also helped him among his Muslim constituency. It was not his opponents who spread this message, but his own strategy and it worked.

 

It was a calculated gamble that Mamdani took. He not only espoused the Palestine cause, he never condemned Hamas for its terror act. In fact, he never condemned the act when it happened on October 7, 2023. He issued a token statement, two years later, only when he was contesting the Mayoral elections. There is no record of him having condemned the attack when it actually happened.

 

But even the token condemnation he issued on the second anniversary of the attack, just less than a month before his elections, he said, “two years ago today, Hamas committed a dreadful act of war, resulting in the deaths of over 1,100 Israelis and the abduction of 250 others. I grieve for these individuals and hope for the safe return of every hostage still in captivity, as well as for the families whose lives have been devastated by these events.”

 

Also read: In Trump’s America, New York elects an 'immigrant' Mayor

 

Interestingly, while he never condemned Hamas for its brutalities and described the act of terror as just an act of “war”, he strongly condemned Israel's response in the same statement. “The current death toll has now surpassed 67,000, with the Israeli military reducing homes, hospitals, and schools to rubble through bombings. Every day in Gaza has turned into a place where sorrow has exhausted its words. I mourn lives and for the families that have been broken apart. Our government has been complicit through it all. This must end. The occupation and apartheid must end,” he said.

 

Mamdani is on record having described the Israeli Prime Minister as a “war criminal”, saying if he visits New York, he will get him arrested.

 

He has described Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also as a “war criminal” and equated him with Netanyahu. He has accused Prime Minister Modi for being responsible for the killing of Muslims in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. He even condemned Cuomo for receiving Modi as the Governor of New York when he visited here in 2017. That is the pathological hatred Mamdani suffers from towards the Indian Prime Minister.

 

Mamdani even managed to spin the 9/11 act of terror into victimhood and “Islamophobia”. Instead of condemning the 9/11 terror attacks, he quoted an incident, which was fact checked later to be fake, that his aunt stopped using the New York subway as she was scared of using hijab due to the “post-9/11 Islamophobia”. His aunt never lived in New York, but in Uganda and she never wore a hijab. After being fact-checked, he claimed that he was actually referring to one of the distant cousins of his father, whom he also considers like his aunt.

 

Mamdani played the “socialist card”, appealing to the working class of New York City, with a promise of free bus rides, ‘rent-freeze’, free childcare and affordable groceries, which worked, while also announcing that he will tax the rich people of the city. New York is home to the maximum number of billionaires and millionaires in the world.

 

With maximum concentration of the immigrant population in the city, there was understandable resentment against the ICE operations by the Trump administration across the country. That resentment also helped Mamdani.

 

It was the combination of many factors together like his being a Muslim, appealing to the working class by promising overall affordability and simmering anger against Trump that helped him to romp home the victory. Plus, his personal charm and charisma was the icing on the cake.

 

While it is said that about 33 per cent of the New York Jews also voted for Mamdani, the claim is being disputed. It was claimed by CNN after conducting a survey among about 700 Jewish voters, 33 per cent of whom claimed to have voted for Mamdani, despite his pro-Palestine and stringently anti-Israel stance. The small sample size is too small to be representative as it is impossible to conclude the voting pattern of about one million people from a sample of 700 people. But that is how the CNN played it from day one, projecting Mamdani as “everybody’s Mayor” including that of the Jews, despite his pronounced positions on Israel.