Londoners cast votes Thursday in an election that could give the city its first Muslim mayor, while voters elsewhere in Britain were expected to punish the main opposition Labour Party in local and regional polls.
Sadiq Khan, a 45-year-old Labour lawmaker, is favorite to replace flamboyant Conservative Boris Johnson as London mayor.
Conservative mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith used words such as “radical” and “dangerous” to describe Khan, and accused his opponent of giving “platforms, oxygen and even cover” to Islamic extremists —a charge repeated by Prime Minister David Cameron and other senior Conservatives.
Khan, a former human rights lawyer and the son of a bus driver from Pakistan, styled himself “the British Muslim who takes the fight to the extremists.
In an election-eve message, Khan promised to be “a mayor for all Londoners.”
