From Calcutta to New York, and from Tehran, San Salvador and Bogota to Istanbul, the office of the mayor has often proved to be a training ground for statesmanship. Local governance - with its blend of proximity to citizens, crisis management, and practical policymaking - cultivates the very skills needed for higher office.
Nayib Bukele has served as the President of El Salvador since June 1 2019. Before that, he was Mayor of San Salvador (2015-18) and prior to that Mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán (2012-15). His trajectory is a clear example of local government (mayoral) experience leading into national executive office. Gustavo Petro has served as the President of Colombia since August 7 2022. Prior to the presidency, he served as Mayor of Bogotá from 2012 until 2015. In Bengal, Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Haque, who was first elected in 1937 and served as the Mayor of Calcutta, went on to become one of the most respected political figures of undivided Bengal. Though he didn't become statesman of Pakistan, but was remembered as a visionary who combined administrative experience with mass leadership.
When Awami League was failing to make it to ruling position in Bangladesh after the disastrous performance in power from 1972 to 1975, election in 1994 to Mohammad Hanif as the first Mayor of undivided Dhaka paved the way for the former authoritarian leader Sheikh Hasina's rule in 1996 though Hanif himself couldn't be a statesman. He focused on basic civic services, including waste management, road maintenance, and market regulation, although his administration faced severe resource constraints.
Across the world, similar trajectories can be seen. In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rise from the Mayor of Tehran to the Presidency showed how local executive success can translate into national authority. Likewise, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, who began his career as the Mayor of Istanbul, leveraged his municipal achievements - cleaner water, better transport, and visible urban reforms - to establish credibility before becoming Turkey's Prime Minister and then President.
In the Western democratic sphere, Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, and Zohran Mamdani represent a new generation of cosmopolitan, Muslim-background leaders redefining political inclusivity in global cities. Khan's administration of one of the world's largest and most diverse metropolises has often been cited as a case study in urban diplomacy, where city leaders engage in international cooperation, climate policy, and refugee integration - areas once reserved for heads of state. I am not pretty sure about these two mayors of two major metropolitan cities- New York and London- would make it to White House and 10 Downing Street. Probably their success depends on the success in transport, housing, water, waste management.
How Mayors Make Future Presidents: first, Proximity to People: Unlike parliamentarians or bureaucrats, mayors deal directly with citizens' problems - waste, water, traffic, housing - turning abstract policy into visible results, second Executive Experience: Managing a city budget, bureaucracy, and services mirrors the complexities of running a nation on a smaller scale, third, Media Visibility: Mayors are public figures whose decisions impact daily life, giving them a constant media spotlight, fourth, Crisis Management: City leaders face immediate accountability in emergencies - floods, strikes, or pandemics - shaping them into decisive, practical leaders and fifth, Nonpartisan Appeal: Successful mayors often transcend rigid party lines by focusing on results, not rhetoric.
Historical centralisation of power in postcolonial Arab states: After independence, nearly all Arab regimes - from Nasser's Egypt to Bourguiba's Tunisia - created highly centralized state systems, where local governments had almost no real autonomy.
Mayors (baladiyah heads) were appointed, not elected, and functioned as bureaucratic extensions of the ruling party or the Ministry of Interior. This meant Islamist groups - banned from official politics - could not enter local governance even if they had community networks or welfare projects. Hence, the mayoral route that helped Erdo?an or Ahmadinejad build executive credibility was institutionally blocked in North Africa.
Mosque-Based Mobilization vs. Municipal Administration: Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt), Ennahda (Tunisia), and FIS (Islamic Salvation Front, Algeria) built their legitimacy through mosques, charities, and welfare networks - not through city halls.
Their grassroots success was moral and ideological, not administrative or technocratic. They could mobilize protests and provide relief, but had no experience in running sanitation, transport, or budgeting systems - key aspects of city governance. When they reached national power (e.g., Egypt's Morsi in 2012), this lack of administrative grooming became apparent.
Suppression of Local Elections: In countries where Islamists could have contested local positions, such opportunities were deliberately suppressed:
In Algeria (1991), when the FIS won municipal elections, the regime panicked. Their success - especially in major cities like Algiers and Oran - showed the depth of Islamist support. The military coup that followed canceled national elections and plunged the country into civil war.
That episode discouraged Islamist movements across the region from seeing mayorship as a viable stepping stone; they saw it as a trap leading to state backlash.
The "State within a State" Problem for Islamists: Islamist parties across the world including those in Bangladesh are often parallel societies - with their own charities, education systems, and health services - functioning outside the state structure.
Because of this, they lacked the institutional learning that comes from managing public offices within government systems. Secular parties like BNP, Awami League etc in Bangladesh, by contrast, often had members rotate through municipal and ministerial roles, creating an institutional memory of governance.
The Absence of an "Urban Political Culture": Unlike Turkey, where cities like Istanbul and Ankara became laboratories for political experimentation, North African cities remained under tight bureaucratic control as is the case with Dhaka, Islamabad, Male.
Islamists were strong in peri-urban and rural areas and fairly recently they have become stronger in DUCSU, CUCSU, JUCSU, not in elite urban districts. Islamists never fared well in mayoral elections in mega cities.Therefore, they did not cultivate mayors who could demonstrate the managerial competence that reassures the middle class - a key factor in Erdo?an's early success.
The Global Perception Factor: Mayors operate under intense international and media visibility. In the post-9/11 era, Islamist politicians were heavily stigmatized by Western powers, which made local business elites and donors cautious about associating with them. Thus, even if Islamist local leaders existed informally (as community heads or regional coordinators), they were never allowed to formalize into recognized mayoral positions.
Consequences of Skipping the Mayoral Stage: The absence of Islamist mayors meant: No administrative apprenticeship before assuming national power, No civic coalition-building with professionals, unions, or secular moderates and No tangible record of governance to counter elite or media fear campaigns. When Ennahda or the Brotherhood entered power, they faced a state bureaucracy they had never managed and urban electorates they had never directly served.
Lessons from Erdo?an and Ahmadinejad: By contrast: Erdo?an (Istanbul, 1994-1998) built credibility by solving water shortages, waste crises, and public transport issues - showing Islamists could govern efficiently.
Ahmadinejad (Tehran, 2003-2005) used mayoral populism - cleanliness drives, street projects, worker appeals - to brand himself as a pious technocrat.These successes made them trustworthy in the eyes of ordinary citizens and less threatening to the elite, paving the way for national legitimacy.
The Missing Link in Islamist Political Evolution: Islamist movements in North Africa rose on moral authority and populist energy, but without a municipal ladder to build managerial credibility. Their failure to nurture successful mayors before ascending to national office left them organizationally fragile and administratively inexperienced when in power - leading to their quick political burnout or overthrow. If North African regimes had allowed genuine local democracy, the story of Islamism might have paralleled Turkey's - where a mayor's office became a cradle of pragmatic Islamic governance rather than a symbol of ideological fear.
The writer is a senior journalist, the Daily Observer
