To say that Zohran Mamdani winning the Democratic Party primary for mayor of New York City on June 24 was a complete stunner would be a monumental understatement. He officially beat his opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who conceded his defeat the same night as the vote. While it is far too early to assess what developments will take place before the mayoral vote Nov. 4, there are some points we do know and, more importantly, some we do not know. 

What we do know is that Mamdani is a South Asian Muslim, born in Kampala, Uganda. His mother is the acclaimed Indian film director Mira Nair. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a professor who once taught in Cape Town, South Africa, and now teaches at Columbia University in New York City. 

Mamdani, a member of the New York State Assembly representing a district in Queens, ran on a platform of freezing rents and affordable housing, fast, free buses, no cost childcare and city-owned grocery stores. (zohranfornyc.com/platform) He is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a reformist coalition that is generally to the left of the Democratic Party establishment. 

While Mamdani’s June 24 win excited one million South Asian residents, reportedly along with many young voters in New York City, it drew a strong condemnation from Wall Street and big real estate corporations, along with zealous, right-wing, pro-Israel politicians, who spent $25 million on Cuomo’s campaign. 

These forces falsely labeled Mamdani as a “terrorist” and “antisemitic” even though Mamdani has stated he believes Israel has the “right to exist.” Some Republicans have actually called for the deportation of Mamdani, who became a U.S. citizen once his parents migrated here when he was seven years old. 

What we don’t know 

The Democratic Party is a pro-ruling class, pro-war party, similar to the Republican Party, that will attempt to co-opt its mass base by using any tactic to win elections. One of its most insidious tactics is uplifting politicians of color, whether it is a Zohran Mamdani or a Barack Obama. Voting in any U.S. election with the goal of fundamentally changing the living conditions of the masses winds up being a major disappointment. Bourgeois class rule always maintains its domination. 

With all of this in mind, some questions still to be answered in the coming months are: Will Mamdani take his campaign beyond the constraints of the electoral arena? Or will his campaign cave into right-wing attacks from both capitalist parties? Will the Mamdani campaign directly engage the masses to support his platform of free buses and childcare and to prevent landlords from raising rents by calling strikes or direct actions to shake up the powers that be? Will any intensified Islamophobic, xenophobic or racist attacks or fraudulent claims of antisemitism against the Mamdani campaign spark a mass fightback amongst supporters? 

The answers to these questions and more will have national and international consequences due to the heroic resistance to imperialism in the Global South led by forces in West Asia, leading to the permanent decline of global capitalism. And New York City remains the center of global finance capitalism. 

No matter how the Mamdani campaign plays out in November, the time has ripened for revolutionary anti-imperialists, socialists and anyone who wants to get rid of capitalism to develop an independent united front to forge class unity to achieve this ultimate goal.