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Elected: Keith Ellison. Photo: AP

Minneapolis, November 9, 2006 – VOTERS elected a Democrat as the first Muslim in Congress after a race in which he advocated US withdrawal from Iraq.

Keith Ellison, a 43-year-old lawyer and state representative, defeated two rivals, television networks said, to succeed the retiring Martin Sabo in a seat held by Democrats since 1963.

Mr. Ellison, who converted to Islam as a 19-year-old college student in his native Detroit, won with the help of Muslims among a coalition of liberal, anti-war voters.

While Mr. Ellison, who advocates immediate withdrawal from Iraq, did not often speak of his faith during the campaign, awareness of his candidacy drew interest from Muslims well beyond the district, centered in Minneapolis. A significant community of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis cast their first votes for him in the September primary elections.

While Muslims make up less than 3 per cent of the US population and have hardly been a factor in terms of political power, get-out-the-vote efforts in several Muslim communities indicate they may become a force.

Roughly 2 million Muslims are registered US voters, and their ranks increased by tens of thousands in the weeks before Tuesday's mid-term elections, Muslim groups have said.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks by Islamist militants, Muslim Americans have become sensitized to what many feel is an erosion of their civil rights. US foreign policy targeting Muslim countries had also generated a sense of political urgency, experts said.

"(Americans) treat us differently after September 11. My own father was attacked," said Ellison supporter Khadra Darsame, a 1995 immigrant from Somalia. "Ellison said everybody matters equally and he told us what he would do … he will do the right thing."

Born into a Catholic family in Detroit, Mr. Ellison said his values were shaped by both faiths, along with his grandfather's civil rights work in the Deep South.

Opponents focused on Mr. Ellison's sloppy handling of his taxes, along with his one-time affiliation with the Nation of Islam, whose leader, Louis Farrakhan, has been criticized for making anti-Semitic remarks. Mr. Ellison subsequently denounced Mr. Farrakhan's anti-Semitism and said he worked with the group largely to promote the 1995 Million Man March.

Source: REUTERS

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