LONDON: UK’s Labour party’s politician Rohksana Fiaz, who is a British-Pakistani, has become London’s first directly-elected female mayor.
Rohksana Fiaz, who won with 53,214 votes, said she was “proud and privileged” to be London’s first directly-elected female mayor, accoeding to Evening Standard.
She takes over from Sir Robin Wales, who was deselected after 23 years in the post.
However, Ms Fiaz hopes to hold the referendum during her four-year term as part of a “democracy review”. Ms Fiaz was one of four Labour candidates to be elected as mayor in separate boroughs.
Elsewhere in east London, Philip Glanville and John Biggs were re-elected as mayors of Hackney and Tower Hamlets respectively.
In an interview to OnLondon couple of months ago, Faiz narrated her story if being brought up in London to Pakistani-based parents: “My parents came over from Pakistan in the early 1960s. I was born in Mile End hospital and my parents moved to Newham when I was two or three months old. I grew up in Newham and have never moved away, except for a short period to go to university. My brothers and I were all encouraged to pursue education, which is not atypical in terms of the migrant diaspora community.
I went to university in Wolverhampton, initially to do a degree in a law and IT would you believe, but I switched to politics. I had to suddenly come back to London because of a family crisis. It was in the run-up to Black Monday. My father, after spending a few years working multiple jobs, had set up his own clothes manufacturing business in Brick Lane. He went into partnership with someone, re-mortgaged the house we had in Wanstead, and then the other person embezzled the money.
To another question to influx of migrants, she responded: Change is not a bad thing. Having new people joining your community is a positive thing, it helps in terms of injecting new perspectives etcetera, etcetera. I think the challenge is how you manage that migration in so that long standing residents don’t feel they’re being left behind. I think there is a need for politicians at a local level to recalibrate some of the language that they use. I don’t think the terminology around gentrification is helpful.”
