ANTHONY BUTLER: Does Mamdani have what it takes to deliver change in New York?

First published in Business Day

November 07, 2025

Right-wing curmudgeons around the world are eagerly anticipating New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s forthcoming collision with reality. They are certain there is no way a 34-year-old political novice can transition from fronting a campaign to running a huge city such as New York. I’m not so sure.

Mamdani’s operation was close to flawless, propelling him from little-known state assembly member to Democratic Party nominee in months. He secured the right endorsements from prominent figures such as Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez. And he raised large sums from small donors ― the average donation was about $80 ― and so avoided indebtedness to powerful interests.

His campaign focused on the affordability crisis in the city, proposing rent freezes, free transit systems and higher taxes on the wealthy. Such complex issues will not allow for simple solutions. As equally great cities like Paris and London have shown, however, there are plenty of interventions that are both pro-poor and pro-economy.

Mamdani has credited his parents for stimulating his interest in politics, and he may have imbued from his mother, the brilliant filmmaker Mira Nair, an intense sense of appearance. Like the most natural politicians, Mamdani has crafted a persona that appeals to a wide constituency. He engages seemingly effortlessly in a continuous self-narration, an autobiographical performance of that persona embedded in his daily conduct.

He has campaigned on complex and sensitive issues, including the conflict in Gaza, without making mistakes and without simply rehearsing talking notes prepared for him by others. This suggests ― to a degree more and more unusual among professional politicians ― that he understands what he is saying, even when he is traversing a political minefield.

His father, the Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani, once wrote a critique of Americans’ framing of Islam and Muslims, pointing out that it was US support for anti-Soviet campaigns in Afghanistan during the 1980s that gave birth to modern militant jihad. This had the merit of being true.

Mahmood senior’s most influential book, however, was Citizen and Subject,published in 1996. Drawing on his research in SA and Uganda, he argued that the legacy of colonialism lived on in a distinct form of state power. Colonial rule in Africa created a dual or “bifurcated” political system that separated people into urban citizens and rural subjects. In cities, colonial governments established a civil legal order resembling European political rights, accessible only to settlers and a narrow African elite. In rural areas, colonisers ruled indirectly through customary authorities — mostly chiefs who were appointed and empowered to enforce “tradition” and control local populations.

Mamdani’s conception of the bifurcated state has travelled beyond African studies, not because of its nuance and accuracy, each of which is questionable, but because of its intrinsic political appeal. Researchers and activists have found parallels in India, where colonial indirect rule through princely states and tribal areas produced enduring differentiated citizenship, for example, through scheduled tribes.

In Indonesia and Malaysia, customary law and “native” political authority ostensibly continue to shape local governance and group rights. In Latin America, colonial authorities have arguably maintained communal land systems and traditional leaders as instruments of rural control.

Bold scholars have even applied the concept to Israel and Palestine, suggesting that the legal differences between citizens and people under military occupation echo the divide between citizen and subject. And in the US, indigenous nations and racially segregated governance carry echoes of a similar bifurcation.

This is a powerful sentiment that the mayor-elect has tapped into. Many people intuitively understand the idea of a contemporary subjecthood, a bifurcated reality in which it is we who are the subordinate population lacking substantive citizenship. The young Mamdani may have inherited a formula for fighting back against right-wing populism.

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.