The opposition leader in the Ugandan Parliament views the Ugandan-born Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral race as an inspiring political shift, but it somehow seems too distant for many Africans at home.
“It’s a big encouragement even to us here in Uganda that it’s possible,” said Joel Ssenyonyi, who represents an area of the Ugandan capital of Kampala. “But we have a long way to go there.”
Uganda, where Mamdani was born in 1991, has had the same president for nearly four decades, despite attempts by multiple opposition leaders to defeat him in elections.
President Yoweri Museveni, an authoritarian who is up for re-election in January, has rejected calls to retire, leading to fears of a volatile political transition. His most prominent challenger is a 43-year-old entertainer known as Bobi Wine, who charges that he was cheated in the 2021 election.
Mamdani lived his early years in Uganda. He left Uganda at the age of five to follow his father, the political theorist Mahmood Mamdani, to South Africa, and later moved to the United States. He retained his Ugandan citizenship even after becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018.
His mother is filmmaker Mira Nair, whose work has been nominated for an Academy Award. The family maintains a home in Kampala, to which they regularly return and visited earlier this year to celebrate Mamdani’s marriage.
The Influence of His Professor Father
The elder Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, is known for being a demanding teacher and a key influence on the son’s outlook as a leading scholar in the field of postcolonial studies.
He has written critically of the Museveni government. His most recent book — “Slow Poison,” published in October by Harvard University Press — has juxtaposed the legacies of Museveni and late dictator Idi Amin, who is blamed for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ugandans between 1971 and 1979. He argues that both leaders made violence central to their success and that while Amin retained popular support and didn’t die a millionaire, Museveni’s family is immensely wealthy while he’s no longer popular.
Robert Kabushenga, a retired media executive who is friendly with the Mamdani family, said Zohran Mamdani, like his parents, is unconventional. He “follows a tradition of sincere and clear thinkers who are willing to reimagine the politics,” said Kabushenga. “(His father) must be pleasantly surprised.”
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