London voters elected Labour Party candidate Sadiq Khan as the city’s new mayor on May 5, 2016.
Credit: © Hannah McKay, Reuters

Yesterday, May 5, in London, England, voters elected the Labour Party’s Sadiq Khan as the city’s new mayor. Khan, a London native, is a Muslim of Pakistani descent. His election win makes him London’s first Muslim mayor and just the second Muslim mayor (after Rotterdam’s Ahmed Aboutaleb) of a major European city. Khan’s win reflected the choice of Londoners to focus on issues and a candidate’s policies and abilities rather than a candidate’s race, religion, or ethnic identity. Billionaire Conservative Party candidate Zac Goldsmith—who lost with just 35 percent of the vote—tried to use Khan’s religion against him, hoping his Islamic faith would turn voters away. Goldsmith also tried to link Khan—and the liberal Labour Party in general—to Islamist extremists. The tactics fell flat, however, and Khan’s electoral support—strong from the start—never faltered, carrying him to a comfortable victory.

Sadiq Khan was born in London on Oct. 8, 1970, the son of Pakistani immigrants. His father was a bus driver and his mother a seamstress. Khan joined the Labour Party while still in high school. He practiced as a human rights lawyer before entering Parliament in 2005 as representative for Greater London’s Tooting constituency (where he grew up) in the House of Commons. He held different ministry positions before concentrating on his run for London mayor in 2015.