ZOHRAN MAMDANI'S ELECTION VICTORY WILL BE A REBUKE FOR NEW ZEALAND'S TIMID POLITICS

 

The general election for New York mayor happens on Tuesday, November 4. The polls indicate that Zohran Mamdani will be New York's first socialist mayor. His election will only serve to highlight the bleakness of New Zealand's neoliberal 'consensus', where politics is so timid that even mentioning 'socialism' is regarded as 'extremist' and the only 'alternative' on offer is Labour's corporate-friendly centrism.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI'S election as the socialist mayor of New York will send shockwaves through the stale air of global politics. In the belly of Wall Street, in a city synonymous with finance capital, a man who proudly calls himself a socialist will have won power without apology. He did not cloak his politics in euphemism, nor did he bow to the gods of 'fiscal responsibility' or 'market confidence.' He said plainly that housing should be a right, that wealth should be redistributed, that workers deserve power—and the people of New York said yes.  

But here in New Zealand, the two major parties—Labour and National—continue to shuffle around the same neoliberal altar, offering up the same tired sacrifices. For forty years, since the Rogernomics revolution, our political class has treated neoliberalism as holy writ. Labour gutted the welfare state, National deepened the cuts, and both agreed that public ownership, redistribution, and working-class power were relics of the past. The result is a politics so narrow, so timid, that even whispering the word 'socialism' is treated as a scandal.  

Mamdani’s victory on Tuesday will expose this timidity for what it is: cowardice dressed up as pragmatism. If socialism can win in New York—a city with a ferocious media, entrenched elites, and billionaires on every block—then the excuse that 'it can’t be done here' collapses. The truth is that Labour and National don’t want it to be done here. They are too invested in the neoliberal consensus, too beholden to property developers, banks, and agribusiness to imagine anything else.  

Labour, in particular, deserves scorn. It still trades on the memory of being the party of workers, yet when confronted with the chance to tax wealth, expand public housing, or take bold climate action, it retreats. Its leaders speak the language of kindness while enforcing the logic of austerity. National, of course, makes no such pretence—it openly champions the wealthy and sneers at redistribution. But the real tragedy is that Labour has abandoned even the pretence of offering an alternative. And Labour still has its cheerleaders who peddle the fiction that this is 'the lesser evil'.

This is why Mamdani’s victory matters for us. It shows that voters are not allergic to bold politics. But they are allergic to being lied to, patronised, and told that nothing can change. Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, did not campaign by hiding his socialism; he campaigned by embracing it. He built his campaign on grassroots organising, tenant unions, and community struggles. He offered a vision that connected housing, healthcare, and climate justice into a coherent whole. And people responded.  

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, we are trapped in a bleak cycle of alternating governments that differ only in tone, not substance. The Greens gesture toward wealth taxes, but remain Labour's junior partner. Te Pati Maori raises radical demands but is hemmed in by parliamentary arithmetic. The media dutifully polices the boundaries of debate, branding anything outside neoliberal orthodoxy as 'extreme.' And so the consensus holds, even as inequality deepens, housing becomes a crisis, and public services crumble.  

Zohran Mamdani’s victory on Tuesday will be a reminder that this consensus is not natural law. It is a choice. It is the product of politicians who lack courage, economists who peddle myths, and commentators who sneer at alternatives. The bleakness of New Zealand politics is not inevitable—it is manufactured. And it can be broken.  

The lesson is clear: stop apologising. Stop pretending that tinkering at the edges will solve crises created by the system itself. Stop managing decline and start demanding transformation. If socialism can win in New York, it can win here. But only if we dare to imagine it, organise for it, and refuse to accept the suffocating consensus that has ruled this country for four decades.  

Mamdani’s election will not just be a beacon—it will be a rebuke. It will show us what is possible when politicians stop cowering before capital and start standing with the people. For New Zealand, it will be a mirror reflecting our own cowardice, our own lack of imagination. The question is whether we will keep staring into that mirror, paralysed, or finally smash it and build something new.