He is only the second African-American mayor in the history of New York: the former policeman and anti-racist unionist Eric Adams won hands down the mayor of the American megalopolis on Tuesday, an extraordinary journey for this child of one. poor family who had flirted with crime.
The elected 61-year-old Democrat crushed his Republican rival Curtis Sliwa, 67, as expected, according to preliminary results from the city’s elections office. Eric Adams thus won 70% of the votes cast against about 23% for Curtis Sliwa, in a city classified on the left, but where the economic and social inequalities between different communities are extremely marked.
This victory is a consecration for Eric Adams, born into a poor family in Brooklyn, raised in Queens where he experienced delinquency and violent police arrests before becoming a police captain and creating an anti-racist union there. He then entered politics, elected local Democrat of the State and the city of New York, stepping stone towards the town hall.
Mr. Adams’ supporters were gathered at a Brooklyn hotel awaiting a speech from their champion. “It was time. I believe that workers now have a voice, ”said Jakwan Rivers, black American president of a neighborhood association and friend of the new mayor.
“The little guy”
The latter presented himself during the campaign as the defender of the middle and popular classes, but also as a close friend of the business community of Manhattan, the global financial lung.
Very moved after voting Tuesday morning in his native neighborhood, Eric Adams felt that this election represented social revenge for the “little guy” he was in his youth and therefore for working class New Yorkers.
“We have already won,” he said, drying his tears, without letting go of a portrait of his mother: “I’m not supposed to be here. But since I’m here, New Yorkers will realize every day that they also deserve to be in this city “of eight million people.
“It’s historic!” Exclaimed Anthony Williamson, a 58-year-old worker, after voting for Adams: “That’s great. It shows that we all have a chance to make it happen in New York and America, regardless of skin color ”.
In the last days of the campaign focused on insecurity, the new mayor had caught up on television with Curtis Sliwa, a colorful character, still wearing a red beret and who in 1979 created a kind of militia, the “guardian angels”, voluntary patrols supposed to fight against attacks in the streets, alongside the police.
Former police officer Eric Adams has pledged to be intractable against crimes and misdemeanors whose indicators have turned red in 2020.
Budget at 100 billion
The successor to the unpopular Bill de Blasio will manage the largest municipal budget in the United States: $ 98.7 billion for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
Eric Adams will also have control over the largest police force in the country (NYPD, 36,000 employees), whose reforms he will have to pursue, but without alienating his former powerful and unionized body of origin.
Become a police officer when New York was a cutthroat in the 1980s, he spent 22 years there until the rank of captain. In 1995, he founded a union there which still fights against racism.
Because in its history, the New York police force has often been accused of turning a blind eye to violent, racist and corrupt agents. And she was again the target of complaints in 2020 for the crackdown on anti-racist protests by the Black Lives Matter movement, after the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
In a city that has paid a heavy price for the pandemic (34,000 dead), Eric Adams will have to manage the return to normal of schools, offices and businesses. Also fight against glaring social inequalities, poor housing, poor infrastructure, climate risks. Finally shut down Rikers Island, a terrible overcrowded, ultra-violent and unsanitary prison.
Finally, Eric Adams is very proud to have gone vegan in 2016 to cure his diabetes and has written a cookbook to convince African Americans to do the same.
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