Mamdani's win inspires Ugandans who see hope in youth joining politics

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KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The opposition leader in the Ugandan Parliament sees the Ugandan-born Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral race as an inspiring political shift but somehow too distant for many Africans at home.

“It’s a big encouragement even to us here in Uganda that it’s possible,” said Joel Ssenyonyi, who represents an area of the Ugandan capital of Kampala. “But we have a long way to get there.”

Uganda, where Mamdani was born in 1991, has had the same president for nearly four decades, despite attempts by multiple opposition leaders to defeat him in elections. President Yoweri Museveni, an authoritarian who is up for reelection in January, has rejected calls to retire, leading to fears of a volatile political transition. His most prominent challenger is a 43-year-old entertainer known as Bobi Wine, who charges he was cheated in the 2021 election.

Mamdani lived his early years in Uganda. He left Uganda at the age of 5 to follow his father, political theorist Mahmood Mamdani, in South Africa and later moved to the United States. He kept his Ugandan citizenship even after he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018.

His mother is filmmaker Mira Nair, whose work has been nominated for an Academy Award. The family maintains a home in Kampala, to which they regularly return and visited earlier this year to celebrate Mamdani's marriage.

The elder Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, is known as a demanding teacher and a key influence in the son’s outlook as a leading scholar in the field of postcolonial studies.

He has written critically of the Museveni government. His most recent book — “Slow Poison,” published in October by Harvard University Press — has juxtaposed the legacies of Museveni and late dictator Idi Amin, who is blamed for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ugandans between 1971 and 1979. He argues that both leaders made violence central to their success and that while Amin retained popular support and didn’t die a millionaire, Museveni's family is immensely wealthy while he's no longer popular.

Robert Kabushenga, a retired media executive who is friendly with the Mamdani family, said Zohran Mamdani, like his parents, is unconventional. He “follows a tradition of very honest and clear thinkers who are willing to reimagine the politics,” said Kabushenga. “(His father) must be pleasantly surprised.”

Mamdani's victory in New York offers “a beacon of hope” for embattled activists and others in Uganda. The lesson is that “we should allow young people the opportunity to shape, and participate in, politics in a meaningful way,” Kabushenga said.

Okello Ogwang, a professor of literature who has worked with the elder Mamdani at Uganda's Makerere University, said the son's success abroad means “it's an important thing that we should invest in the youth.”

“He's coming from here,” he said. “If we don't invest in our youth, we are wasting our time.”

As a shy and soft-spoken teenager, Mamdani was briefly interested in a possible career as a newsman and later was part the rap ensemble Young Cardamom and HAB, whose eccentric music videos set in Kampala can still be viewed online.

Before he became a New York assembly member in 2021, the self-described democratic socialist was a community activist in the New York borough of Queens, helping vulnerable homeowners facing eviction.

His mayoral campaign, whose success in the Democratic primary sent a shockwave through the political world, focused on lowering the cost of living, promising free city buses, free child care, a rent freeze for people living in rent-stabilized apartments and government-run grocery stores, all paid for with taxes on the wealthy. Some Republicans have called for his denaturalization and deportation.

“He breaks new ground,” said Kabushenga. “He is willing to try in places that are new.”

Ssenyonyi, the Ugandan lawmaker, said Mamdani’s unlikely victory, as remote for Ugandans as it seems, deserves to be celebrated.

“It inspires us,” he said. “Mamdani is Ugandan-born, like us.”