Sadiq Khan re-elected as London mayor
London, May 9 (EFE).- Sadiq Khan has been re-elected for a second term as London mayor after beating Conservative Shaun Bailey by a smaller winning margin than his previous mayoral election five years ago.
Khan’s reelection was widely predicted and gave the opposition Labor Party some joy after a series of disappointing results in other municipal and regional elections.
Khan won by 55.2 percent to Bailey’s 44.8 percent.
The former MP became the first Muslim mayor of London in 2016.
“Thank you London. It’s the absolute honor of my life to serve the city I love. I’ll leave no stone unturned to get our city back on its feet.,” he wrote on Twitter.
“A brighter future is possible, and we’ll deliver it together.”
Khan and Bailey were unable to secure a majority in the first vote count in a close contest, forcing a run-off.
He received 192,313 second-preference votes against Bailey’s 84,550.
Voter turnout was just 42.2 percent.
The Green Party’s Sian Berry came third, while the Liberal Democrats’ Luisa Porritt was fourth.
After he was declared the winner, Khan vowed to work “to improve the lives of every single person in this city.”
He said the results of the elections around the United Kingdom showed the country and the city remained “deeply divided.”
“The scars of Brexit have yet to heal. A crude culture war is pushing us further apart.”
He said as the country sought to confront the enormity of the challenge and rebuild from the pandemic, “we must use this moment of national recovery to heal those damaging divisions.”
He said the coronavirus pandemic did not care if someone favored leaving or staying in the European Union. EFE
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