Disgraced ex-mayor defies corruption ban to blaze comeback trail at local elections

For a man once banned from office for corruption, declared bankrupt and described in a court ruling as not having a full grip on reality, former east London mayor Lutfur Rahman stands a remarkable chance of returning to power and the chance to control a £1.2 billion ($1.5bn) budget.

Political obituaries were written for Mr Rahman, the two-time mayor of the district of Tower Hamlets, when he was kicked out of office in 2015 for falsely claiming his main rival was a racist, voting fraud, bribery and other complaints.

But after serving a five-year ban, Mr Rahman is back and once again running for mayor in elections this week with a strong chance of victory. Observers predict a close fight between the Bangladeshi immigrant and John Biggs – the current mayor and white Labour candidate who was the subject of false accusations of racism in 2014.

Driving Mr Rahman’s bid for office are the Bangladeshi voters who make up almost a third of the area’s population – a larger community than anywhere else in the UK. His Aspire party is also fielding more than 40 candidates from the Bangladeshi community to stand as local councillors to support the mayor.

That he is standing at all is a remarkable turnaround after four voters successfully brought a case against Mr Rahman over a series of complaints, including handing over large grants that favoured organisations within the Bengali community to secure their votes.

In a highly critical 200-page ruling, Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey described the former mayor as “almost pathologically incapable of giving a straight answer” who had divided the community in pursuit of his own “ruthless ambition”. One senior government minister described Tower Hamlets as having a “culture of corruption” under Mr Rahman.

He was removed from office immediately in 2015 and served with an order banning him from running for office for five years.

Mr Rahman was also ordered to pay £250,000 by the special election court in 2015 but filed for bankruptcy. If he wins the election, he will be paid more than £80,000 a year as the mayor.

“I just think the whole thing is staggering,” said Peter Golds, a councillor for the Conservative Party and veteran campaigner in the borough. “It’s an indictment of the British process."

“When the judgment was read out … you would have thought the authorities would have done something. Instead they left all the petitioners to pick up the legal bills.”

Mr Rahman first successfully stood for mayor in 2010 as an independent after being dumped by the Labour Party as a candidate. He defeated Mr Biggs, his closest rival four years later, to be re-elected but was expelled from office in 2015. The direct election for mayor is being contested by eight candidates and votes are cast in parallel to the contest for council seats.

Central to his victory was that he ran a “ruthless and dishonest campaign to convince the electorate his rival John Biggs was a racist”, said Mr Mawrey. Mr Rahman was accused of securing “undue spiritual influence” by securing support in a letter from 101 imams and religious leaders calling for voters to back him in 2014.

After Mr Rahman’s disqualification, Mr Biggs won a rescheduled vote in 2015 and was re-elected with a stronger mandate in 2018. But in the latest battle he faces a more significant challenge from the charismatic – if elusive – Mr Rahman, who has not turned up for questioning at any pre-election events involving other candidates.

Mr Rahman’s 28-page manifesto with an “8-point plan to fix Tower Hamlets” includes no reference to his previous ban and his other legal woes, including being struck off as a solicitor. His announcement that he was standing included a mild apology but he said that he was never prosecuted for corruption after a police inquiry.

“I have never ever acted dishonestly, but to those who think I didn’t exercise enough control oversight over campaigners in the last election, I apologise,” he wrote.

The National reported in February how one of the petitioners who brought down Mr Rahman is still contesting huge legal bills as a result of his actions.

One mayoralty candidate Andrew Wood – standing as an independent – has committed in his manifesto to paying the costs of the four voters behind the case.

Mr Wood said Mr Rahman had not done enough to demonstrate that he accepted what he did at the 2014 election was wrong. He said it was concerning that he had not opened himself to public scrutiny at pre-election hustings events.

“How will he demonstrate to people he will not repeat what he has done in the past?” said Mr Wood. “What will he do in terms of transparency?”

But he also criticised Mr Biggs for what he said were similar tactics to win the Bengali vote. He said the mayor has been using public money to build a mosque in the borough.

Tower Hamlets has a unique history as one of the UK’s most multiracial areas and home to migrants fleeing prosecution in Europe – including French protestants in the 17th century and Jews in the 19th.

Migrants from Bangladesh are the latest community to arrive in the London borough which has some of the highest rates of poverty in the capital. Yet some of London's poorest residents share Tower Hamlets with the capital's newest financial district Canary Wharf.

The area is changing – Bengali restaurant owners in London’s ‘curry mile’ on Brick Lane opposed plans convert an area owned by a former brewery into an upmarket shopping venue amid widespread fears that rising rents could force some people out of the area.

Observers say Mr Rahman’s campaign – focused on education, homes and tackling the cost of living – remains firmly focused on his traditional constituency within the Bengali community.

“We all want Lutfur,” said Mosabbil Ali, 67, who has lived in the area all his life. Mr Ali said he and his two companions from the Bengali community would be voting for Mr Rahman on Thursday. “There are a lot of people telling lies but Lutfur is a good man and we trust him.”