Urban and local government politics
City Mayors reports political events, analyses the issues and depicts the main players in urban and local government politics

High profile incumbents prevail
in American mayoral elections
4 November 2009: The big story of this year’s US mayoral elections is the narrow victory of Michael Bloomberg in the New York City race, who obtained a previously impossible third term by only four per cent over Democrat challenger William Thompson. Incumbents also triumphed in Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, St Paul and Rochester, while second-round ballots will need to be held in Atlanta and Houston. More

Green Party and Free Democrats
gain in Germany's local elections
9 June 2009: The Green Party emerged as the surprise winner in local elections, which took place in seven German states alongside voting for the European Parliament on 7 June 2009. Support for the Greens was particularly strong in southern Germany. With both, the country’s largest parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), suffering losses, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) also performed well. The results for Germany’s newest party, the left-wing Linke, were below expectations. The right-wing National Party of Germany (NPD) achieved some double-digit successes in its strongholds in eastern Germany but made little impact in other areas of the country. Local elections were held in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. More

Meltdown for Labour in
English local elections
5 June 2009: The governing Labour Party of Gordon Brown has suffered total meltdown in the English local elections, losing its last remaining county councils and both mayoralties it was defending. The election results, widely anticipated as a likely indicator of the embattled prime minister’s ability to cling on to office, were overshadowed by a series of cabinet resignations, designed to challenge to his authority to lead. Results from the European Parliamentary elections held the same day will not be known until Sunday, after the rest of Europe has voted. More

British expenses scandal
dominates political debate
23 May 2009: Local elections will take place in England on 7 June this year, alongside those for the European Parliament. Elections will be held for all 27 county councils in England, as well as a handful of urban unitary authorities. Three of England’s 11 directly elected mayors will also be elected, while the elected mayor system in Stoke on Trent will be abolished and replaced with an indirectly elected leader on the same day. Following the scandal over British parliamentarians’ profligate expenses claims, voters are likely to turn against the two main parties amid a reported rise in the popularity of minor parties. More

Helen Zille - My aim for South Africa:
An open, opportunity-driven society
26 April 2009: The African National Congress (ANC) won the 2009 South African elections convincingly but, nationally, fell just short of the two-thirds majority, which it easily passed five years earlier. The ANC also won in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces, the only exception being the Western Cape, where the Democratic Alliance (DA), led by Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille, received 51 per cent of the provincial vote. More

Istanbul and Ankara
reelect sitting mayors
31 March 2009: Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has performed less well than expected in elections seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. The polls, marred by violence in some rural areas, saw close run contests in the main cities of Istanbul and Ankara. More

Obama promises to become
America’s first urban president
25 November 2008: Barack Obama has promised to advance a number of issues important to mayors of US cities soon after he takes office on 20 January 2009. America's 44th President says he will create 2.5 million well-paying jobs during the first two years of his administration by renovating infrastructure and schools and developing alternative energy sources. More

Left and centre-right make
gains in Brazil’s larger cities
28 October 2008: Gilberto Kassab of the centre-right Democrats party, won the contest for São Paulo mayor in the second round yesterday (26 October), beating Marta Suplicy, the PT candidate, by 60.7% to 39.3%. According to political scientist Maria Victoria Benevides, Kassab owed his victory to a generally indifferent public. In contrast, Suplicy, provoked strong feelings of rejection, especially among the middle class who feel the government has privileged the very rich and very poor. A former mayor of São Paulo between 1997 and 2000, More

Race and weather may
influence US elections
22 October 2008: Earlier this year, the US Conference of Mayors released a 10-point plan to revitalize American cities. The mayors pressed the presidential candidates to adopt their plan as official campaign policy and take a position in support of cities. The mayors assumed that voters pay attention to a candidate's policies and positions. However, studies of American voter behavior suggest that such factors as the color of a candidate's clothes or the weather outside may play at least as important a role as a candidate’s policies in determining the outcome of a presidential election. More

Very few mayors rise to top
positions in US government
21 September 2008: Sarah Palin, the running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, is a former mayor of Wasilla (population 7,000), Alaska. Ms. Palin is trying to become the second mayor ever to ascend to the vice-presidency of the United States. To a large degree, Palin’s candidacy reflects Americans’ ambivalence towards cities. More

French municipal elections offer
Sarkozy some crumbs of comfort
18 March 2008: In 2005 the French legislature extended the mandates of the country's 36,783 mayors by one year, arguing that it would be unfair to hold local elections as scheduled alongside the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections. Unfair on whom, it could be asked. Certainly not Nicolas Sarkozy, who would have been viewing a very different map of town hall control had the poll been held in 2007, the year of his party's dual electoral triumph and the beginning of splits within the opposition Socialist Party (PS), still recoiling at losing three presidential elections on the trot and watching from the sidelines. More

US presidential candidates
largely ignore urban issues
28 February 2008: US cities are struggling with unemployment, housing, underperforming schools, aging infrastructure, and poverty, while devoting more resources than ever to energy costs and homeland security. Mayors of the nation’s cities say that such concerns have been largely ignored in the presidential campaigns. The US Conference of Mayors has urged the presidential candidates to adopt their 10-point plan Strong Cities for a Strong America ’08. It asks candidates to commit to strengthening the economies of metropolitan areas. More

Ukrainian mayors are ready
for a municipal revolution
4 December 2007: Many mayors in the Ukraine are angry about the lack of progress of reforming the relationship between central and local government. They accuse the government of neglecting the needs of cities, towns and villages to protect the interests, and often bank accounts, of their business supporters. Now local leaders call for a municipal revolution to follow on from the country’s Orange revolution. More

Democrat city mayors did well
in American off-year elections
7 November 2007: In any other country it would be tempting to consider the results of municipal races as part of a national trend affecting the outcome of future general elections, but in the US the familiar saying all politics is local truly holds sway. While presidential contenders continue to vie for their party’s endorsement, across urban America the Democrats either returned mayors or introduced new faces into city halls. Most significantly, San Francisco’s Gavin Newsom, Houston’s Bill White, Baltimore’s Sheila Dixon and Pittsburgh’s Luke Ravenstahl, all Democrats, easily won re-election, while in Philadelphia Michael Nutter coasted home to replace term-limited John Street. More

Texan mayors want
to stop border fence
17 October 2007: Mayors of several Texas towns on or near the US border with Mexico have filed legal actions to stop the federal government from building a planned security fence to deter illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Both Mexico's current president and former president are also weighing in against the fence. Mayors and city councils all along the Rio Grande river, which forms the border with Mexico, are banding together in an effort to stop construction of the fence. More

Even in an ‘off-year’ Americans are asked
to elect hundreds of thousands of officials
8 September 2007: The world watches closely every four years as the United States elects a new president, and most people know that congressional elections are held every other year. But many people may not realize that even in off-years, such as 2007, thousands of elective positions are filled around the country. More

Mayoral contests dominate
America’s off-year elections
5 September 2007: Ahead of the widest open presidential election in living memory set for November 2008, city races across urban America will provide few pointers to its outcome. The 'lame duck' presidency of George W. Bush and the slow-burning decline of his administration through staged departures of key allies, as well as the wooing of voters by his putative successors, will have negligible effect on mayoral races. With only three gubernatorial races penciled in this November and no elections to Congress, mayors will have the stage to themselves. Instead, the usual routine concerns and personality politics will determine the future occupancy of city halls in November's off-year elections. More

Time has come for city mayors
to challenge for US presidency
3 August, 2007: A former mayor of New York City, Rudolph Guiliani, is a leading Republican candidate for president. The city's current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is the subject of much speculation since he is said to be considering a run. However until now, few mayors have had the national standing to aspire to the presidency. More

Democratic and Republican election rivals
pledge to change how Philadelphia is run
30 July 2007: Conversations about the state of Philadelphia, the sixth-largest US city, in this election year have a Tale-of-Two-Cities quality about them. New residents flock to the city center and some outlying districts while the city as a whole continues to lose population. House and apartment prices have risen smartly over the past decade, but employment has fallen. People stroll the streets of the city’s business and entertainment district Center City at all hours without fear, but the city is in the grip of a violent crime epidemic not seen in at least a decade. More

Russian mayors in the spotlight
ahead of key national elections
22 June 2007: High-profile lawsuits against city mayors have been a prominent feature of Russia's political life in the past year. Prosecutors say they are combating rampant corruption in municipal administrations. But the lawsuits are widely seen as part of another, ongoing battle - one aimed at muzzling dissent in the regions ahead of key elections. More

US presidential candidates are not paying
enough attention to nation’s urban issues
9 June 2007: Almost a year before the first US primary ballots are cast in January 2008, the campaign for president got rolling in earnest this spring. There was news of Rudy Giuliani's wife's undisclosed first marriage, Illinois Senator Barack Obama nipping at New York Senator Hillary Clinton's heels in the fundraising race and John Edwards' $400 haircut. All but ignored was a report from the Center for American Progress that outlined "a national strategy to cut poverty in half." Though it garnered few headlines, the poverty report forms part of a burgeoning effort to put lower-income people and urban areas closer to the campaign spotlight. More

Nationalists negotiate coalition deals
in some of Scotland’s largest cities
4 June 2007: Mayor changes are likely to affect Scotland’s cities and major towns over the next four years after the first ever Scottish National Party election success, which has resulted in that party running a minority administration in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood (Edinburgh) and becoming the largest party in Scottish local government. More

Socialists, conservatives and nationalists
all claim success in Spanish local elections
29 May 2007: Both of Spain’s main political parties, the ruling socialists and the opposition conservatives, have declared themselves satisfied with the outcome of the country’s local and regional elections held on Sunday, 27 May 2007. While the opposition People’s Party (PP) received the highest number of votes, the centre-left Socialist Party (PSOE) gained the largest number of seats on local and regional councils. More

As costs and casualties mount
US cities urge end to Iraq war
9 May 2007: When President Bush appeared in a flight suit on the deck of aircraft carrier USS Lincoln on 1 May 2003 to declare an end to major combat in Iraq, he received high approval ratings in American public opinion polls. Four years later, the president’s ratings have fallen, and nearly 300 American cities have passed resolutions calling for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. More

As Blair prepares to leave office, his party
suffers election losses across the country
5 May 2007: In local and regional elections held across Great Britain on 3 May 2007, the country’s governing Labour Party suffered losses in most parts of England, Scotland and Wales. The most significant defeat for party of departing Prime Minister Tony Blair occurred in Scotland, where the Scottish Nationalists became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament. In regional elections in Wales, Labour failed to win an overall majority in the Welsh Assembly and will have to enter a coalition if it hopes to continue to form the regional government. Meanwhile in English local elections, Labour lost control of nine local councils, while the Conservative Party gained 38, with the Liberal Democrats, the UK’s third party, losing five. There were no elections held in London. More

Murder, bankruptcy and nuclear waste
were all part of Japan’s local elections
24 April 2007: Japan's first set of unified local polls have concluded with the second round elections held 22 April 2007. In what should have been a more low-key set of polls following the prefectural gubernatorial races held a fortnight ago, eyes were squarely on the Nagasaki mayoral vote held after the slaying of incumbent Iccho Ito, with two national by-elections also concentrating party efforts. More

Local election results boost
Japan’s governing coalition
9 April 2007: Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara was re-elected for a third term in the 8 April 2007 poll in a vote that will draw comfort for the national governing coalition, but showing the independent city chief on a much reduced tally of just 50 per cent. In a race lacking in verve from principal challenger Shiro Asano against the beleaguered incumbent, footage of Kouichi Toyama, a street entertainer running as an anarchist, from public television election broadcasts had unexpectedly become the most-played Japanese clip on YouTube on account of his confrontational speech-imploring voters to rise up against the "detestable nation". More

First unified local elections viewed with
anxiety by Japan’s two largest parties
26 March 2007: Campaigning is underway for Japan’s first ever set of unified local government elections. Previously election dates were scattered throughout the spring, leaving most races held on local issues rather than having all eyes on any national campaigning. The move towards unified local polls across Japan, as well as the rescinding of the ban on local election manifestos, was designed to reinvigorate the local democratic process by making such races more charged. More

Corruption and terrorism to dominate
Spanish regional and local elections
15 March 2007: ETA terrorism and corruption in local government: those are the two issues that will most probably decide this year’s local and regional elections in Spain. The government’s response to terrorism by ETA, the Basque region's separatist movement, and well-publicised cases of corruption in local politics have led to a polarisation of Spanish politics. For both main political parties, the socialists and conservatives, the local elections are the last major test before the next general elections. More

A new approach to persuading
local talent to serve on councils
9 February 2007: After decades of neglect the issue of where to find local councillors has become a burning topic in England. The UK government and the Local Government Association have announced a commission to be chaired by Jane Roberts, former leader of Camden Council in London, to look at the barriers and incentives into serving as a councillor. More

Iranian President suffers
defeat in local elections
21 December 2006: Final results announced by the Iranian interior ministry show that the Iranian president's opponents have won local elections held on 15 December. Moderate conservatives opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a majority of the seats, followed by reformists, whose chances of electoral success were severely handicapped in 2004 by ultra-conservatives loyal to Ahmadinejad. More

John So, Lord Mayor of Melbourne
wins the 2006 World Mayor Award
5 December 2006: John So, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, has been elected World Mayor 2006. Runner up in the 2006 World Mayor contest is Job Cohen, Mayor of Amsterdam. In third place is Harrisburg’s long-serving mayor Stephen Reed, while Jejomar Binay, Mayor of Makati City, ranks fourth. Michel Thiollière, Mayor of St Etienne, completes the top five. John So will be presented with the World Mayor Award early in 2007. Previous winners are, in 2004, Edi Rama, Mayor of Tirana and now also leader of Albania's socialist party, and in 2005, Dora Bakoyannis, Mayor of Athens and now Greek foreign minister. More

UK government must take
a lead on elected mayors
27 November 2006: It is clear that we are living in an age when people are losing faith in organisational brands of all kinds, political, commercial and charitable. Instead, in our fast-moving world, voters and consumers want to see real, live human beings to whom they can relate, someone to blame or to praise. The days when we were motivated by a political party or a local institution are coming to an end. More

Directly elected mayors are not
an effective model for England
19 November 2006: Let me make clear from the start – I don’t like the idea of elected mayors. I have been a councillor a long, long time and do not believe that they are an effective model for most areas. I am not scared of change – I embrace it and preach it. I oppose (elected) mayors as a matter of principle and because we can already see that they are having no discernible impact on the areas they lead. More

Brazil re-elects left-wing president
but most governors are centre-right
18 November 2006: In elections often marked by doubt and surprise, Brazil re-elected its left-wing president but most state governors come from the centre-right of the political spectrum. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT  - Workers Party) won in the second round of the election with almost 61 per cent of the vote. His opponent Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB – Brazilian Social Democracy Party) received 39 per cent. At state level, left-wing and centre-left parties provide nine governors, while 17 newly elected governors belong to centre-right and right-wing parties. More

Spanish judges investigate more
cases of corrupt local government
16 November 2006: According to Berlin-based Transparency International, Spain is among the more corrupt countries in the European Union. In its 2006 international survey the organisation put Spain in 23rd place. The well-known Marbella case, involving the mayor and other local government officers, is only the tip of the iceberg and at the root of it all is urban development fraud. More

American mid-term elections:
Results from states and cities
11 November 2006: In the US, the success of the Democratic Party in taking control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections and their increased numbers of Governorships will mean new opportunities and challenges for cities in the next two years. There are now Democrat Governors in 28 states and in 15 of those they control both houses of the state legislature too. More

Marbella awaits new elections after most
local politicians are accused of corruption
1 November 2006: The sleaze scandal, which hit the southern Spanish resort city Marbella in spring 2006, soon proved to be only the tip of a massive corruption iceberg. During the spring operation, codenamed Operation Malaya, the police arrested the city’s mayor and deputy mayor amid allegations of money laundering, property development offences, including building on land protected from development, manipulation of public tenders, the acceptance of bribes as well as schemes to alter the price of municipal services. More

White Paper proposes stronger mayors
and more power to English communities
30 October 2006: The UK government has published its long-awaited white paper on local government reform for England, Strong and prosperous communities, outlining its proposals for enhanced local leadership, decentralisation to communities and more accountable local services. The reforms are seen as one of the final acts of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration before his scheduled departure from office next summer. More

Suspension of two Philippine
mayors ‘politically motivated’
24 October 2006: First there was Pasay City Mayor Peewee Trinidad. An order for preventive suspension for three months was meted out by the Philippine Office of the Ombudsman based on an administrative complaint that he entered into a garbage contract for the city in gross disregard of the auditing procedure. Then there was Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay. A preventive suspension order for two months was issued by the Office of the President and implemented by the Department of Interior and Local Government. More

Democrats look forward
to victory in urban USA
17 October 2006: Campaigning for the 2006 US mid-term elections on 7 November has been overshadowed by the stream of revelations concerning Republican Representative Mark Foley’s inappropriate online liaisons with a Congressional boy page. In local races however, the national swing against the Republicans is unlikely to have any impact in the mayoralties that look likely to re-elect the Democrats in their urban heartlands. But in some cities a close finish may be likely among candidates of the same party. More

England’s few elected mayors
score highly on accountability
15 October 2006: The directly elected mayoral model has been one of the more controversial elements of England’s local government reform agenda. Enthusiasm for the model by central government was borne out of recognition that effective, high profile, and legitimate local leadership is essential to delivering high quality local public services. However critics warned that it would concentrate too much power in one person’s hands and diminish the role of other councillors. More

UK political parties debate
Britain’s local democracy
6 October 2006: The party conference season is a fixture of the UK political calendar and even prolongs Parliament’s summer break, but there are few contrasts with the party conventions in the US. While in the US party conventions take place every four years, are open to state delegates and anoint candidates for the presidency, their UK equivalents are held annually, open to almost all and instead deliberate policy. More

Edinburgh’s new leader promises
to listen over city’s transport plans
28 September 2006: After seven years at the helm, Donald Anderson stepped down as leader of the City of Edinburgh council in August 2006. He aims to contest the next set of Scottish Parliament elections in May 2007. In the meantime, new Edinburgh leader Ewan Aitken has put his predecessor in charge of culture and sport. More

Still highly popular after 14 years,
Moscow mayor looks to the future
23 September 2006: Few city mayors have billionaire wives and an independent foreign policy agenda, and even fewer elicit as much animosity and adoration as Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. He has remained the center of attention in Moscow political life for over decade, building up a legacy in politics and urban planning that is sure to outlast his mayoral tenure. And if Luzhkov’s recent moves are any indication, he is not looking to glide into a quiet retirement after 14 years in office. More

England struggles over the
concept of elected mayors
14 September 2006: English elected mayors are in the news again and for all the wrong reasons. Speculation over the contents of the much-delayed forthcoming local government white paper and whether or not it will call for more elected mayors is routinely replaced by yet another story of a council besieged by campaigners demanding a return to the old system and to ditch the mayor. For those living and working outside of British politics, the messy and inconsistent system is rightly a mystery and this City Mayors feature will explain why this is the case. More

Not red and blue but black and white
are the true colours of US elections
17 August 2006: Election Day in the United States this year is 7 November. The big question at the national level is whether the Republican Party will retain its ruling majority in the US Congress. As the candidates begin campaigning in earnest, the media have begun analyzing the mood of the electorate. The nation’s electorate is divided, pundits claim, based on values. More

California considers the future
of its most charismatic mayors
5 August 2006: If opposites attract, what of two men as similar as Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco, and Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles: bold, charismatic and young enough to aspire beyond the cities they run and reflect? The result could be a novel contest pitting the state's two marquee mayors in a fight for Californian governor. Never mind that San Francisco's Newsom and Los Angeles' Villaraigosa both disavow any thoughts of future office, insisting they are utterly consumed with their jobs at hand.

Study of Canada’s hub cities
blinkered by regional politics
3 August 2006: The Conference Board of Canada study released earlier this month ‘Canada's Hub Cities’ is an interesting exercise designed to say that the country's hub cities should get extra help to support their economies and build up their infrastructure. A worthy message, for sure. Unfortunately, the Conference Board falls victim to Canadian politics, something startling for an organization of its stature. More

Top South Korean politician pays
the price for local election defeat
1 June 2006: The chairman of the South Korean president's political party has resigned to accept responsibility for a sweeping defeat in this week's local elections. Voters overwhelmingly selected members of the main conservative opposition party to fill local authority positions, possibly dealing a serious blow to the ability of the country’s president's to advance his agenda. More

Italy’s new centre-left government
heartened by local election results
30 May 2006: While new Italian premier Romano Prodi has every reason to be cheerful at the encouraging results in the local polls held 28-29 May 2006, local factors and strong mayors could be said to have delivered the outcome. For Silvio Berlusconi, loser of the last month’s general election, the results merely compound his party’s agony. In Rome, Turin and Naples, the centre-left governing coalition achieved an increase in seats and the safe return of incumbent mayors. More

Re-elected New Orleans Mayor
promises to bring city together
22 May 2006: Appearing before cheering supporters, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin thanked them and then called for everyone in the city to come together in harmony. He said the time had come to start the healing process. He also spoke optimistically about efforts to bring the city back from the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina eight months ago, using federal funds and a recovery program he defended throughout his campaign. More