Labor mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who in 2016 became the first Muslim to rule a western capital, was re-elected for a second term, according to results released on Saturday, May 8.
The elected 50-year-old son of Pakistani immigrants, who grew up in social housing, was ahead in Thursday’s municipal elections curator Shaun Bailey, with Jamaican roots.
He got 55.2% of the vote in the second count against Shaun Bailey. In the first count of all the candidates, he won 39.8% of the vote against 35.1% of the vote for Mr. Bailey, a much smaller gap than what the polls suggested.
Europhile convinced
During his tenure, Sadiq Khan, a former human rights lawyer, has carved out a reputation for himself as a staunch Europhile, fierce towards Brexit and his apostle, the Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his predecessor as mayor.
For his campaign, Sadiq Khan adopted as a mantra “Employment, employment, employment” eager to revitalize the economy of a metropolis marked by the pandemic and Brexit, a blow to its powerful financial sector.
To ensure “A brighter future” in London, hoping to repeat the success of 2012, he said he wanted to nominate the city for the Olympic Games « durables » in 2036 or 2040, which would stimulate the construction of environmentally friendly infrastructure.
Public transport price freeze
Sadiq Khan grew up in an HLM housing estate in Tooting, a popular district in south London, with his six brothers and his sister. Her father was a bus driver, her mother a seamstress.
In 2005, he gave up his legal career to be elected Member of Parliament for Tooting, where he still lives with his wife and their two daughters.
During his first mandate, the elected official froze the price of public transport and created low-emission zones to fight against automobile pollution.
However, he has been criticized for failing to stem stabbing attacks, a scourge he attributes to declining police numbers resulting from austerity measures by conservative governments.
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