Mayoral win: Rahman trounces Labour

In what can only be described as an extraordinary election result, the hounded and ousted former Labour Mayoral candidate Lutfur Rahman swept to victory as the new mayor for Tower Hamlets.

With barely a few weeks to campaign as an independent candidate Rahman and his many supporters took on Labour and won by a huge margin winning 51.76% of the vote.

Questions will now be asked by the Labour hierarchy, how did they get themselves in such a mess? How did they find themselves yet again paying scant regard to their largely Bengali constituency?

And whilst the Labour party undertakes a painful postmortem, the Conservatives will feel they have done well coming third, beating their coalition partners into fourth place.

The Liberal Democrats can only view this election result as a dismal night too. Their candidate John Griffiths was beaten into fourth place. Many will now ask, is this the writing on the wall for the Lib Dems or is it more to do with their local party not selecting the popular Muslim candidate Ajmal Masroor who did extremely well in the General Election campaign only to be passed over by his local party?

For the new Mayor Rahman the healing process of a bitterly fought campaign must begin now.

At the Channel S and OBV hustings on Tuesday it was clear that all the candidates agreed with OBV on one thing; concerns about the need to clean up local politics must have the immediate attention of the elected mayor.

Tower Hamlets is also a one of the poorest boroughs in the country, but has in its midst the world beating financial institutions. Along with Olympic legacy support the Mayor must bring the people of Tower Hamlets together to bring the poorest out of poverty by generating prosperity for everyone.

Simon Woolley