New York, United States – Sprawling crowds, a seven-block-long social gathering and chants to “tax the wealthy” on the planet’s wealthiest metropolis marked Zohran Mamdani’s public inauguration as New York Metropolis mayor on Thursday, because the metropolis welcomed a brand new yr with a brand new management.
Political inaugurations are often extra stolid affairs. However, as he had in his marketing campaign for the mayoralty, Mamdani flipped the script together with his swearing-in occasions.
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In act one, simply after midnight, because the ball dropped in Instances Sq. to ring in 2026, Mamdani took the oath of workplace in a small ceremony on the steps of the landmark New York Metropolis Corridor subway station.
New York State Legal professional Basic Letitia James administered the oath as Mamdani stood beside his spouse, Rama Duwaji, on a staircase contained in the transit hub, which has not been used for passenger service since 1945. He used a historic Quran borrowed from the New York Public Library for his swearing in, and a second one which belonged to his grandfather.
The general public celebration arrived later, on New Yr’s Day, when Mamdani repeated the oath on the steps of Metropolis Corridor earlier than a crowd that spilled throughout the encircling plaza and into the streets. Regardless of the blistering chilly, tens of 1000’s of supporters streamed into Decrease Manhattan to look at the brand new mayor – together with the town’s comptroller, Mark Levine, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – formally assume workplace.
Nationwide political heavyweights, together with Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, flanked the town’s new management and delivered speeches outlining the progressive motion’s governing ambitions in New York and the nationwide reverberations the race has already despatched to lawmakers throughout the nation.
“An important lesson that may be discovered at present is that when working individuals stand, once they don’t allow them to [the ultra-wealthy] divide us up, there may be nothing that we can’t accomplish,” Sanders mentioned earlier than swearing in Mamdani.
Whereas visitors and the press gathered contained in the Metropolis Corridor grounds, the town staged a seven-block-long public block social gathering – a brand new twist on the historically ticketed inauguration format. Along with a closed occasion capped at a number of thousand attendees, anybody prepared to RSVP and endure the frigid air and blustering winds after an evening of snowfall may attempt their luck at getting in.
And lots of did, bundled New Yorkers shuffled via safety checkpoints, hoping to glimpse the swearing-in of a 34-year-old democratic socialist now charged with operating the most important metropolis in the USA, streaming on giant displays stationed all through the encircling space exterior Metropolis Corridor.
Some supporters advised Al Jazeera they waited in line for hours, and plenty of by no means made it via the checkpoints in time. Whereas crowds cheered and horns blasted in solidarity from a distance, a handful of protesters lingered behind police barricades.
The block social gathering in and of itself was symbolic in its effort to achieve extra New Yorkers who’ve usually been ignored of the political course of, Democratic strategist Nomiki Konst advised Al Jazeera.
“It was a approach of opening up one thing that hasn’t been accessible for anyone, you recognize, that wasn’t a part of the interior circle of New York politics and media,” Konst advised Al Jazeera.
“It was a possibility to present again to the individuals who helped him get into workplace.”
A message of unity and affordability
Mamdani, Williams and Levine spoke about unity for all New Yorkers, delivering remarks in English, Spanish, Hebrew and Greek, and showing alongside religion leaders of a number of completely different faiths, together with Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
“We’ve three swearings-in. One by a pacesetter utilizing a Quran, one by a pacesetter utilizing a Christian Bible, and one utilizing a Hebrew Bible. I’m proud to dwell in a metropolis the place that is doable,” Levine mentioned after taking the oath of workplace.
Mamdani echoed that sentiment.
“We are going to draw this metropolis nearer collectively. We are going to exchange the frigidity of rugged individualism with the heat of collectivism. If our marketing campaign demonstrated that the individuals of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this authorities foster it,” Mamdani mentioned in his tackle.
“We are going to ship nothing much less as we work every day to make this metropolis belong to extra of its individuals than it did the day earlier than.”
However the core message, voiced repeatedly by Mamdani, Levine, Williams, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, was the identical one which outlined the marketing campaign: that the extremely rich ought to pay larger taxes.
“Demanding that the rich and huge companies begin paying their fair proportion of taxes just isn’t radical. It’s precisely the proper factor to do,” Sanders mentioned, as supporters chanted, “Tax the wealthy.”
Certainly one of Mamdani’s core guarantees was to lift the company tax charge in New York Metropolis from 7.25 % to 11.5 %, equal to that of neighbouring New Jersey, in addition to a 2 % improve in taxes on those that make greater than $1m a yr. Any tax plan would wish the approval of the governor to maneuver ahead.
“This motion got here out of eight-and-a-half million somewheres – taxi cab depots and Amazon warehouses, DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] conferences and curbside domino video games. The powers that be had seemed away from these locations for fairly a while – in the event that they’d identified about them in any respect – so that they dismissed them as nowhere. However in our metropolis, the place each nook of those 5 boroughs holds energy, there isn’t a nowhere and there’s no nobody,” Mamdani mentioned.
Housing coverage has been central to that affordability message for Mamdani. Certainly one of his signature marketing campaign guarantees was to freeze the hire on the town’s rental stabilised flats, which symbolize about half of the town’s rental housing inventory.
“These in rent-stabilised houses will not dread the newest hire hike – as a result of we are going to freeze the hire,” Mamdani mentioned in his remarks.
Solely hours later, Mamdani launched a slate of govt orders all aimed toward housing.
“On the primary day of this new administration, on the day when so many hire funds are due, we is not going to wait to ship motion,” Mamdani mentioned at a information convention.
He introduced three govt orders inside a rent-stabilised constructing in Brooklyn, together with the creation of two new metropolis activity forces on housing coverage: one to take stock of city-owned land that may very well be used for housing, and one other to determine methods to spur improvement.
“The housing disaster is on the centre of our affordability disaster. There are a variety of issues we’re going to be targeted on: defending tenants, going after dangerous landlords, and constructing extra housing. An enormous a part of how we get out of our housing disaster is to construct extra inexpensive housing throughout the town,” Leila Bozorg, the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning, advised Al Jazeera on the steps of Metropolis Corridor hours earlier than asserting the brand new insurance policies.
“These are coverage selections we will tackle if now we have the political will and if we put the sources behind it. And that’s what he [Mamdani] is dedicated to doing.”
