Left-wing European politicians are celebrating Wednesday morning after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election.
British Labour Party politician and London Mayor Sadiq Khan was among the first to congratulate Mamdani, saying: “New Yorkers faced a clear choice — between hope and fear — and just like we’ve seen in London — hope won.”
The co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament, French MEP Manon Aubry, also reacted with jubilation.
“Faced with the media, economic and political establishment that spent tens of millions of dollars to block his path, he managed to turn the tables with radically concrete proposals […] and without ever turning a blind eye to racism and Gaza,” she said.
Aubry and other European left-wing representatives, including a delegation from Germany’s The Left party, traveled to New York to learn lesson from the socialist wunderkind, who collected more than 50 percent of the vote Tuesday.
Aubry added: “I saw the power of his campaign in action, led by our allies in the Democratic Socialists of America, which created a real popular momentum and doubled the voter turnout.”
Mamdani will be the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and — like London’s Khan — he has been verbally attacked by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suffered a bad night Tuesday with a string of Democratic election victories around the country.
Green Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, a frequent foe of Hungary’s populist-nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, also congratulated Mamdani.
“How familiar it feels when the central government threatens a candidate it dislikes by saying they won’t receive central support, and instead backs another so-called ‘opposition’ candidate,” he wrote in an Instagram post, in reference to Trump’s late endorsement of independent challenger Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York state.
The leader of Germany’s The Left, Heidi Reichinnek, expressed her delight by reposting Mamdani’s winning announcement reel in an Instagram story, adding “Good morning” and a heart emoji.
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