Ugandans on edge as K’la born Mamdani takes lead in New York mayoral race amid Trump’s threats

As Zohran Mamdani walked the streets of the Upper East Side for a campaign event to greet early voters, he could barely walk a few steps without being stopped by his supporters.

Two smiling young women looked starstruck and told him they followed him on Instagram. The millennial Democratic nominee for mayor thanked them before posing with another young man who had readied his phone for a selfie.

Throngs of press surrounded Mamdani and captured his every moment, like running into the street to shake hands with a taxi driver shouting “we support you, man”.

With a comfortable lead in the polls, the 34-year-old is on the brink of making history when New Yorkers vote on Tuesday, as the youngest mayor in over a century and the first Muslim and South Asian leader of the city.

A relatively unknown figure just months ago, few could have predicted his rise, from hip-hop artist and housing counsellor to New York State assembleyman and frontrunner to lead the biggest city in the US, a job which comes with a $116bn (£88bn) budget and global scrutiny.

US President Donald Trump has since endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayor’s race, urging voters not to elect left-wing front-runner Zohran Mamdani.

“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday evening. “He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”

The president earlier said he would be reluctant to send more than “the very minimum” level of federal funding to his hometown of New York if Mamdani was elected.

This echoed comments he made in a television interview on Sunday, during which he referred to Mamdani as a communist – a label that Mamdani rejects.

“It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York,” Trump said in the interview. “Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there”.

Responding to Trump’s comments about funding, Mamdani said he would “address that threat for what it is: it is a threat. It is not the law.”

He describes himself as a democratic socialist, and has rejected accusations he is a communist, joking in one television interview that he was “kind of like a Scandinavian politician”, only browner.

The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to cut federal grants and funding for projects primarily located in Democratic-run areas. New York City received $7.4bn (£5.7bn) in federal funding this fiscal year.

Independent candidate Cuomo, a long-term Trump critic who was formerly a Democratic governor for New York state, responded to the tepid backing from the president: “He’s not endorsing me. He’s opposing Mamdani.”

Opinion polls suggest Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, is ahead of Cuomo, who is running as an Independent after Mamdani bested him in the Democratic primary. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, trails behind.

Trump, also a Republican, declined to endorse Sliwa in Monday’s social media post, saying: “A vote for Curtis Sliwa … is a vote for Mamdani.”

Mamdani said that “the MAGA movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo is reflective of Donald Trump’s understanding that this would be the best mayor for him”.

“Not the best mayor for New York City, not the best mayor for New Yorkers, but the best mayor for Donald Trump and his administration,” Mamdani said.

In his wide-ranging interview with CBS programme 60 Minutes on Sunday, Trump said that Mamdani in office would make left-wing former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “look great”.

“I got to see de Blasio, how bad a mayor he was, and this man will do a worse job than de Blasio by far,” the president said.

Trump grew up in the New York borough of Queens and still owns property in the city.

“I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, but if it’s gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” the Republican president told CBS.

If Mamdani wins, he will become the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest in more than 100 years.

The 34-year-old state assemblyman has called Cuomo, the former New York governor, a puppet and parrot of Trump.

“The answer to a Donald Trump presidency is not to create its mirror image here in City Hall,” Mamdani said on Monday.

“It is to create an alternative that can speak to what New Yorkers are so desperate to see in their own city and what they find in themselves and their neighbours every day – a city that believes in the dignity of everyone who calls this place home.”

Cuomo has sought to parry that line of attack by presenting himself as the only candidate experienced enough to deal with the Trump administration.

He was governor of New York state during the Covid-19 pandemic when many states clashed with the Trump administration, though Cuomo himself came under scrutiny after state investigators found nursing home deaths were significantly understated during the outbreak.

“I fought Donald Trump,” Cuomo said during a recent debate ahead of the mayoral vote. “When I’m fighting for New York, I am not going to stop.”

Trump has deployed National Guard troops to Democratic-led cities as part of a crime crackdown, while seeking to strip funding from jurisdictions that limit their co-operation with federal immigration authorities.

UGANDANS ON EDGE

In the Ugandan newsroom where he appeared one day as an intern, Zohran Mamdani looked shy and unassuming. His father had arranged for him to spend time at the Daily Monitor newspaper with hope that the teenager would show more interest in current affairs.

“He told me himself: He had to go every evening and have a conversation with his dad about the current affairs of the day,” recalled Angelo Izama, the journalist who was tasked with mentoring Mamdani in 2007 in the capital of his native Uganda, Kampala.

Mamdani wanted to be a “top reporter,” which is how Izama recalled saving the young man’s number in his cellphone. While sports was the teen’s passion, he also “had insatiable curiosity about the world” around him.

“He was very, very curious as a young person,” said Izama, who remained in touch with Mamdani for years after his months-long experience as a journalist. “This is something that will stay with him forever.”

Izama told The Associated Press he was not surprised by Mamdani’s rise in U.S. politics and described him as a role model not just for fellow Ugandans and other Africans but young people everywhere.

“I think he’s basically global, not so much Ugandan and not so much American,” Izama said.

Mamdani was born in Kampala in 1991. His father is Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia professor who taught for many years at Uganda’s top public college, Makerere University, and whose academic writings are influential in the field of postcolonial studies. His mother is filmmaker Mira Nair, whose work has been nominated for an Academy Award. He is an only child.

The Mamdanis split their time among the U.S., India and Uganda, where they have a hillside home in a wealthy area of Kampala. In July, the family gathered here to celebrate Zohran Mamdani’s marriage, underscoring their Ugandan roots.

Some Ugandans who have known Mamdani over the years say that while he may not be fluent in the local Luganda dialect, he understands the language and is proud of his local background.

“We shouldn’t just be proud of Mamdani,” said Joseph Beyanga, a media manager who is among those who mentored Mamdani at the Daily Monitor. “We should be very excited.”

Beyanga said he felt “challenged” by Mamdani’s ambition, calling it a civic lesson for young Africans who feel alienated from politics.

Izama said Mamdani “brings a role-model charge that would electrify Africa, which is full of talent,” adding that “there is reason for us to be very proud.”

Mamdani left Uganda as a child but regularly returned. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2018. Before he became a New York assemblyman in 2021, the self-described democratic socialist was a community organizer in the New York borough of Queens, helping vulnerable homeowners facing eviction.

Mamdani’s win over Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary sent a shockwave through the political world. His campaign has focused on lowering the cost of living, promising free city buses, free childcare, a rent freeze for people living in rent-stabilized apartments and government-run grocery stores, all paid for with taxes on the wealthy.

His candidacy has attracted the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump, who alleged without evidence that Mamdani was in the U.S. “illegally.” Some Republicans have called for Mamdani’s denaturalization and deportation.

Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama has reportedly offered to be a sounding board for Mamdani, and endorsements have come in from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Yet Mamdani’s rocketing success would not be easily replicated in Uganda, said Nicholas Sengoba, an independent political analyst in Kampala.

His rise shows “that America is a land of opportunity for the free and the brave,” he said. “The irony is that in Uganda you would have to put in a big fight for it. You would have to blast your way into the door.”

About Post Author