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London creates history at Mayoral elections
London, one of the world’s leading international cities created history last Friday by electing its first Muslim mayor in an acrimonious and bruising campaign that often evoked memories of Sri Lankan elections.
While there were elections for assemblies in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and cities in England, attention was largely centred on the London Mayoral polls because of the vicious turn the campaign had taken with charges of anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism being bandied and finding a home in this ethnically diverse city.
Labour Party candidate Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants with humble beginnings, thus became the first Muslim mayor of a major western capital defeating his rich and liberal-minded conservative rival of Jewish background, Zac Goldsmith by a substantial margin, garnering 57% of the vote to his opponent’s 43%.
What undid Zac Goldsmith whose sister was once married to famed Pakistani cricket captain Imran Khan, and some months ago was ahead of Sadiq Khan in the polls, was a racist Conservative election campaign in which efforts to demonise the Labour Muslim candidate smacked so much of Islamophobia.
This disgraceful campaign which connected Khan with Islamic fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism, entered in Parliament when during Prime Minister’s Question Time, David Cameron accused Khan of sharing a platform with a Muslim cleric who is said to have preached extremism and implied Khan shared the same views.
Watching on TV those shameless attempts to rouse anti-Muslim prejudices and stoke fears of Islamic terrorism erupting in the UK did bring back recent memories of racist slurs and charges of resurgent terrorism being bandied about on Sri Lankan platforms and august chambers. In the House of Commons there were no fisticuffs.
Observers here say that this poisonous Tory campaign was orchestrated by No 10 Downing Street but it was condemned by several prominent Tories as “repulsive” and “outrageous”.
One other effect this Labour victory has had is that those who have been plotting against party leader Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to evict him, have had to sheath their knives – for the time being at least.