London’s first Muslim mayor’s warm Twitter welcome

Al Arabiya, 8 May 2016 – The election of Sadiq Khan as London’s first Muslim mayor has been welcomed by all walks of life from pop-stars and sporting personalities to human rights lawyers and US presidential hopefuls.
His victory was significant, not only because the Labor Party – of which he is a member – failed to make any significant gains elsewhere in Thursday’s local elections, but also because he is London’s first Muslim mayor.
“Son of a Pakistani bus driver, champion of workers’ rights and human rights, and now Mayor of London. Congrats, @SadiqKhan. –H,” Clinton wrote on her Twitter feed.
The former human rights lawyer was elected with a massive majority of 1,310,143 votes. The next closest was Conservative Zack Goldsmith who failed to get even close with 994,614 votes.
The majority was significantly bigger than either of his predecessors Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone.
Goldsmith came under fire for his mayoral campaign in which he tried to win the electorate’s favor by focusing on Khan’s alleged links to Islamic extremists. It was a move that led on Friday to the Conservative’s own sister Jemima telling British media it “did not reflect who I know him to be”.
In 2008 Khan wrote an article for British daily the Guardian in 2008 in which he said he “did not come into Parliament to be a Muslim MP.”
He added “And I have never set myself up as a Muslim spokesperson or community leader. Just as ordinary citizens have multiple identities, so do MPs.”
Many well-wishers were focusing more on his work as a human rights lawyer than his religious background.