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Profile: London's first Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan

Xinhua, May 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

British Labour Party politician Sadiq Khan has been elected mayor of London, becoming the first Muslim mayor of the capital city, according to official polling results announced Saturday.

Khan's father came to Britain from Pakistan and for 25 years drove London buses. Now Khan will be running all of the capital's buses, as well as the famous underground trains of London.

From living in a small council house with his parents, six brothers and sister, the 45-year-old lawyer won the race Friday in the election to be the city's top official.

The Labour politician, described as a center-left social democrat, succeeds the flamboyant Conservative Boris Johnson who many commentators speculate has set his sights on the keys to 10 Downing Street.

Khan's work as a lawyer led to him winning election to a local council in London, then to the House of Commons as a member of the parliament, elected in 2005 in the London constituency of Tooting.

From there he entered the corridors of power as a government minister and when Labour was defeated in the 2010 general election, he became a shadow minister on the opposition benches.

As minister of transport in Gordon Brown's Labour government, Khan was the first Muslim Briton to sit in the cabinet at 10 Downing Street. He steered one of the biggest rail infrastructure projects in London.

The London-born politician has lived all his life in the capital, married to a Londoner, raising their two daughters in the city.

Calling himself "a big sports fan," Khan ran in the 2014 London Marathon, raising 29,000 U.S. dollars for charity.

Looking to his aims for London, the new mayor has big ambitions.

"My vision for London is simple -- I want all Londoners to have the same opportunities that our city gave me: a home they can afford, a highly-skilled job with decent pay, an affordable and modern transport system and a safe, clean and healthy environment," Khan said.

The mayor of London bears responsibilities in four major policy areas in Britain's capital, namely transport, policing, environment, and housing and planning, making it one of the key positions in British politics. Endi