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Pakistani Origin Sadiq Khan May Become London's First Muslim Mayor
The London mayoral election takes place on Thursday 5 May. Polling stations will be open from 7am until 10pm. The next Mayor of London will replace Boris Johnson, the Conservative who has held the post since 2008. The Labour Sadiq Khan is in pole position. For the first time, the English capital\'s leader might be a muslim and son of the son of a Pakistani immigrant.
The London mayoral election takes place on Thursday 5 May. Polling stations will be open from 7am until 10pm. The next Mayor of London will replace Boris Johnson, the Conservative who has held the post since 2008. The Labour Sadiq Khan is in pole position. For the first time, the English capital's leader might be a Muslim and son of the son of a Pakistani immigrant.
The Mayor of London is elected under a "supplementary vote" system. Voters indicate their first and second preference candidates. If no candidate receives over half of the first-preference votes, the top two candidates proceed to a second round where the other candidates are eliminated and their second-preference votes are distributed between the two remaining contenders.
In all likelihood, the election will come down to a head-to-head battle between Sadiq Khan of the Labour Party and Zac Goldsmith of the Conservatives.
Most indicators point towards Sadiq Khan being the city's next mayor.
A recent YouGov poll gave the Labour candidate a 16-point lead among first-preference votes, with 48 per cent of support, followed by Mr Goldsmith on 32 per cent. When second-choice votes were reallocated, the split was 60 per cent support for Khan and 40 percent for Goldsmith.
One bookmaker has put the odds of the Tory candidate winning the race at just 2 per cent.
Arguably, the election is automatically slanted in Mr Khan's favour. London is a Labour town. 45 out of 73 of its MPs are Labour. That was up on 2010. Likewise the number of votes the party took at the 2015 general election: 1.55 million against 1.23 million for the Conservatives.
But London is not the same as the U.K. nor Europe. One of the world’s most diverse cities, more than 40 percent of its population is from an ethnic minority, compared to 16 percent in the U.K. as a whole.
“London is a beacon for the rest of the world,” he told POLITICO. “Where else do you get a politician of Islamic faith opening his fast in Jewish synagogues? That’s the London that I know. We don’t tolerate difference, we respect it and celebrate it. That’s the London story — why would you want to divide that and cause problems?”
