London Mayor Sadiq Khan has ousted his main rival for the post, Sean Bailey, the candidate for Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party.
Khan, from the opposition British Labor Party, won 1,206,344 votes, or 55.2% of the vote, while his conservative rival Sean Bailey got 977,601 votes, equivalent to 44.8%.
And his victory this time was achieved by a smaller margin of votes compared to his victory about 5 years ago.
He was expected to win by an overwhelming majority, but the result was closer than expected.
Khan's victory comes as votes continue to be counted elsewhere in the country after municipal elections are held on May 6.
The center-left Labor Party faced tough competition in the elections, losing seats to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party (center-right).
Labor also won, along with London, the presidency of Liverpool and Greater Manchester, but lost Tees Valley and the West Midlands, and Khan's victory gives some joy to the opposition Labor Party, which suffered a series of disappointing results in another local election.
"I feel so humbled by the confidence that Londoners have given me to continue to lead the greatest city on earth and I promise to do my best to help build a better and brighter future for London after the dark days of the epidemic," said Khan, who focused his campaign on creating jobs and stimulating tourism.
A few days ago, Sadiq Khan, in a press statement, expressed his hope to win a second term in the municipal elections.
He confirmed that he had a plan - if he wins - to help London recover from the "devastating" effects of the country's exit from the European Union (Brexit) and the Corona pandemic.
He believed that "Britain's exit from the European Union and the horrific pandemic had a devastating effect on companies in London and across the country."
Khan, a former parliamentarian who succeeded Johnson as mayor of London, which has a population of about 9 million, had faced criticism because of the high crime rate in the British capital, especially the stabbings involving teens.
Signs of Ascension
And after he gave a new face to London, the laborer Sadiq Khan became a face of continuity by winning a second term at the helm of the British capital, without forgetting his foreign and humble origins that he is proud of.
The 50-year-old former human rights lawyer won the London mayor for the first time in 2016, a remarkable rise for the son of Pakistani immigrants who lived in social housing like his conservative opponent of Jamaican descent, Sean Bailey.
Khan is not shy when talking about his upbringing. "I grew up in a social housing a working-class boy, the son of immigrants, but now I am the mayor of London. I am a resident of London. The city is in my blood but I am also a patriotic and British man proud to represent the wonderful capital of the nation," he vowed Building bridges between population groups in the next three years.
During his tenure, Sadiq Khan built himself the reputation of a European-born fierce opponent of Brexit promoted by conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had been mayor before him.
The man caused an uproar with his clashes with US President Donald Trump, who personally attacked him during a wave of jihadist attacks in London.
"He once described me as a failure. Only one of us is a failure, he is not me," he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse a week before the elections.
Olympic Games
During his campaign, Sadiq Khan adopted the slogan "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" to revitalize the economy of a city that faced the epidemic and Brexit, which dealt a severe blow to its strong financial sector.
To secure a "brighter future" for London, in the hope of repeating the success of 2012, he said he wanted to nominate the city for "permanent" Olympics in 2036 or 2040, which would stimulate building an infrastructure that respects the environment.
During his first term, the elected official froze public transport rates and created low-emission zones to combat pollution from cars.
But he has faced criticism for failing to stop the knife attacks, a scourge he attributes to the decline in the number of police personnel brought about by conservative governments' austerity measures.
More recently, he set up a committee to improve diversity in public spaces in the wake of the "Black Lives Matter" movement that led to the smashing of statues of slave traders in the United Kingdom.
Compulsory boxer
In a country where politics is still the preserve of a mostly white elite, Sadiq Khan said months before he was first elected in 2016 that he “never imagined” that he would be chosen to run for the mayoral position.
Sadiq Khan was born in October 1970 to a Pakistani family who had recently immigrated to Britain, and grew up with his six brothers and sisters in the popular Tetting neighborhood in south London.
His father was a bus driver and his mother was a seamstress.
He studied at an unpopular public high school in his neighborhood and then at the University of North London.
He expresses his gratitude for this free and formal education.
He initially wanted to study science in order to become a dentist, but one of his professors touched his skill in debate and confrontation, and directed him towards the study of law.
Therefore, he studied law and specialized in human rights issues, and for 3 years he headed the non-governmental human rights organization "Liberty".
As a child, he learned boxing so that he could stand up to anyone who dared to call him a "Pakistani" in the street.
At the age of 15, he joined the Labor Party and was elected to Wandsworth City Council in South London in 1994, a position he held until 2006.
In 2005, he gave up his legal profession and was elected as a deputy for Tooting, where he still resides even now in a house slightly larger than the one in which he grew up, with his wife Saadia, a lawyer, and their two daughters.
Three years later, Gordon Brown offered him the position of Secretary in charge of Collections Affairs and then the Transportation Department the following year. He became the first Muslim to hold a portfolio in a British government.