Muslim voices are decisive … get to know the most prominent candidates for the post of London mayor in the “Good Thursday” elections.

It is “Good Thursday” in the United Kingdom in general and London in particular, as more than one election is being held today to select the Parliament of Scotland, the Parliament of Wales, and also the Council of London, the most important city in the country, and to it all eyes are on to see who will lead the city of fog during the next three years.

The elections for the mayor of London were scheduled to take place during the past year, before it was postponed for the current year due to the Corona epidemic, and the current elections are not without its wit given the list of candidates totaling 20 candidates, some of them from YouTube stars and social media platforms, in addition to controversial personalities from He chose to appear in public as Iron Man, and people known to be against social distancing measures, wearing face masks and getting vaccinated. Read also London is the first city in the world for millionaires .. What about the poor?Pandemic and Brexit ravaged it … Will Sadiq Khan restore its financial glory to the foggy capital?In the first week of Brexit … billions of dollars leave London for the European Union

Nevertheless, according to many opinion polls, they remain a repeat of a usual phenomenon in the elections in London, with the emergence of personalities looking to appear and exploit this election occasion to gain fame.

The real competition remains between the candidates representing the main parties in Britain (Labor, Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens), who are vying for leadership in the largest and richest city in all of Europe.

Who are the most prominent candidates?

The current Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, a representative of the Labor Party, tops the list of candidates, and during his campaign, Sadiq Khan focused on a pledge to create 170,000 jobs within 4 years, support the green economy, and support vulnerable groups that have been severely affected by the Corona epidemic.

Sadiq Khan has turned into a balanced political figure in the country, given his strong political positions, especially his continuous conflict with former US President Donald Trump, as he refused Trump to have the red carpet in London, and allowed a large balloon to be raised mocking Trump.

The closest competitor to Sadiq Khan is Conservative Party candidate Shaun Bailey (49 years old), who has served in London City Council since 2016, and Shaun bases his electoral narrative on the legitimacy of being a Londoner who was born in a slum and thus is the most knowledgeable about the problems plaguing the neighborhoods. Poor in the capital.

In his election program, Shaun promises to provide 100,000 homes at prices of 100,000 pounds sterling, which is a low figure compared to the very high property prices in the capital, in addition to his efforts to bring an important electorate in London that has become dissatisfied with the security situation in the city, by employing 8,000 policemen. in the capital.

If many consider the current elections to be confined to Sadiq Khan and Conservative Party candidate Shaun Bailey, then there is a third candidate to watch out for, which is Sian Berry, one of the founders of the British Green Party, who previously participated in the 2016 elections and won 150,000 votes.

The model of the candidate, Brian Rose, remains worthy of attention, as this financial expert of American origin, who has worked for many years in the field of finance and business, appears as if he wants to repeat the experience of Donald Trump, as Brian Rose owns a media platform in London, and appears as a businessman who makes unrealistic promises. Such as building 50 thousand homes in 6 months, converting all car parks into green spaces, and his resentment over the closure measures.

What about the Muslim voice?

When Sadiq Khan succeeded for the first time to the post of Mayor of London in 2016 to succeed Boris Johnson, many analyzes went to the fact that the Muslim minority played an important role in this achievement, and the statistics indicate that the number of Muslims in the capital is about a million half a million, approximately 14% of the city’s population They are the second religious group after Christianity.

Usually, many Islamic institutions avoid expressing a position in favor of a specific candidate, but the “Islamic Public Affairs Group in Britain” (MPACUK), a pressure group working to defend Muslim issues, called for making the Green Party candidate the first option, then Sadiq Khan the second option, and blocking The door is open to the Conservative Party candidate because of his anti-Muslim statements, according to their announcement.

And previous election statistics indicate that the Muslim vote in general tends to favor the Labor Party candidates, especially during the era of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, since during his rule more than 60% of the Muslim votes went to Labor Party candidates, and the Muslim background of Sadiq Khan is considered a greater incentive for Muslims to vote for him.

What do the polls say?

Since the year 2000, the city of London has always been under the control of the Labor Party, except for the period of Boris Johnson, and opinion polls show that the city will remain loyal to the workers, as Sadiq Khan is comfortably ahead of his closest competitor, the Conservative Party candidate.

According to an opinion poll conducted by Politico, Sadiq Khan leads these elections by 65% ​​compared to 35% for the Conservative Party candidate. As for the opinion poll conducted by the “U-Cove” website, which is considered the largest in Britain, it confirmed that Sadiq led the elections by 47% against 26% to his rival from the Conservative Party.

And if these figures are true, the Conservative Party candidate will record the worst loss since the appointment of the mayor of London in 2000, in return it will constitute a moral boost to the Labor Party, which has not yet emerged from the shock of the historic electoral loss that it suffered in 2019, and there is a famous saying that has become in circulation in British political circles said that “in order for the conservatives to win the city of London, they must lose the rule of the country.”