By Ezequiel Peressini (IWU-FI)*
On November 4, mayoral elections will be held in New York City. The candidacy of young Zohran Mamdani is causing an uproar on the political scene across the country. Mamdani openly supports the Palestinian cause and “has said that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is genocide” (Clarín). What worries those at the top is that he is leading the polls.
Mamdani’s surprise victory in the Democratic Party primaries on June 24 exacerbated the that party’s crisis. Its leadership had bet heavily on former state governor Andrew Cuomo (68), who had the support of former President Bill Clinton and multimillion-dollar financing from former Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mamdani won 56.21% of the vote, with 565,639 votes, the highest number of votes ever obtained by a candidate in the history of the city’s primary elections.
Mamdani is a 33-year-old Muslim of Ugandan origin with Indian parents. He is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization with social democratic and left-leaning reformist currents that operates within the Democratic Party. He is currently a member of the New York State Assembly and has denounced the genocide in Gaza and Palestine, actively participated in demonstrations, and stated that, if elected, he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city. He also advocates for taxing business owners who support genocide. He makes these statements and proposals in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel.
Mamdani also promotes a series of progressive proposals that seek to respond to the most pressing needs of the city’s impoverished workers, such as reducing the cost of living, free transportation, access to housing, and higher taxes for the wealthiest.
The great sympathy Mamdani has received in his campaign has allowed him to organize more than 50,000 volunteers who go door to door throughout the city. The support for Mamdani and the movement he has awakened can only be explained by the growing rise of mobilizations in support of the Palestinian people and the reorganization of the working class and youth confronting Trump and his repressive, anti-democratic, militaristic, and austerity policies.
It is also an expression of the crisis of the Democratic Party and the failure of the Biden-Harris administration, as millions are seeking a political alternative to the far right.
Both Trump and the leadership of the Democratic Party and big business are seeking to prevent Mamdani’s victory. Traditional Democratic leader Andrew Cuomo, for example, is running as an “independent” candidate endorsed by Hilary and Bill Clinton. Trump is threatening to militarize New York City if Mamdani wins. All of them express the panic that the capitalist class feels at the possibility of a victory by a candidate who calls himself a socialist and supports the Palestinian people.
Our political current has important differences with Mandani and DSA. The most important is that DSA does not break with the Democratic Party, which is a bourgeois imperialist party, and therefore does not contribute to the creation of a large left-wing party based in the working class.
Despite this, together with our comrades in Socialist Core, who are supporters of the IWU-FI in the US, we believe that a victory for Mamdani would be a political blow to those at the top. Beyond the differences we have with Mamdani, and without placing any trust in the Democrats, we call for critically supporting his candidacy and continuing the mobilization and popular pressure so that the most progressive aspects of his program are effectively fulfilled and the mayor’s office backs the struggle against genocide. Meanwhile, we will continue to bet on the emergence of a left-wing political alternative independent of the Democrats and the Republicans. It will be a vote against the Democratic and Republican oligarchy and Zionism, with the aim of deepening the mobilization to support the heroic Palestinian people and strengthening the struggle against Trump’s far-right government.
*Member of the Global Sumud Flotilla.