A Muslim teal-style campaign to oust the ALP in Sydney and Melbourne is seeking candidates as Anthony Albanese’s suspension of Fatima Payman from the Labor caucus exacerbates a rift between the party and the Islamic community.
The suspension of the senator for crossing the floor to vote with the Greens on Palestine statehood, and her warning that she’d do it again, has alienated Labor from its historically loyal Muslim voter base, which is mobilising to make that clear at the next election.
The Muslim Vote – a formal campaign bidding to oust Labor incumbents in seats with high Muslim populations – has opened applications for prospective candidates, including in the electorates of Education Minister Jason Clare and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke.
Any candidates running as part of the Muslim Vote platform are likely to be campaign-affiliated independents, backed with resources, volunteers and funding, similar to Climate 200’s support of independent teal candidates, albeit not to the same extent.
The Australian revealed in April that Labor powerbrokers feared abandonment by Muslim voters across southwest Sydney and inner-city Melbourne over its Gaza war stance and, in June, how the campaign was spearheaded by Islamic leader Sheik Wesam Charkawi.
On Sunday, Sheik Charkawi published a “candidate call out”, encouraging people to put themselves forward to run with the Muslim Vote’s backing. “Have you thought about truly speaking for your community? Now is the time,” he wrote.
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separate group called Muslim Votes Matters has launched a similar campaign targeting Labor-held seats with a “Gaza scorecard”.
It is also recruiting volunteers, but has stopped short of calling for candidates. On Sunday, it held its Victoria launch at the Melbourne Grand Mosque.
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Those organisations, and the campaign’s link – if any – to a seemingly UK-based sister organisation remains unclear.
It shares a near-identical website, and content and brand identity, to its British equivalent – also called the Muslim Vote and is endorsing pro-Palestine candidates for that country’s general election. It was co-established by Muhammad Jalal, who has expressed his support for the Australian campaign
Mr Jalal, a politics lecturer, crunched the numbers for the UK Muslim Vote campaign and was the leader of the British chapter of
Hizb ut-Tahrir between 2000 and 2005, but has had nothing to do with that group since 2008 and does not share some of its recent views.
Sheik Charkawi is not part of
Hizb ut-Tahrir, and The Australian is in no way suggesting he is.
However, Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun, a
Hizb ut-Tahrir backer, who was filmed on October 8 saying he was “elated” – he has said he had been misquoted – is involved in the campaign.
Whether formally or as a supporter, Sheik Dadoun, at the campaign’s December establishment encouraged volunteers to get involved.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/sheikh-charkawis-bid-to-dump-labor-to-fi...Bbwiyawn, answer the call.
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