The Democrat's victory has been a blow to Donald Trump (79), who remains a 'persona non grata' in New York despite controlling his real estate empire from there.
Furthermore, Mamdani holds another record as the youngest mayor of the Big Apple since 1892. As expected, the parents and wife of the new resident of Gracie Mansion publicly congratulated him.
From now on, the spotlight will not only be on Zohran Mamdani but also on his wife, Rama Duwaji (28), who has been a virtually invisible figure during the campaign as she has not granted interviews or participated in most events.
The New York 'first lady' was born in Houston into a Syrian Muslim family that has instilled in her the millennia-old culture of her ancestors. She has also spent part of her life in Qatar. After graduating cum laude from the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she first studied in Qatar and then on the Richmond campus in the United States, she obtained a master's degree in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Her work as an illustrator and potter focuses on the evolution of her identity in different contexts, beauty standards, racism, classism, misogyny, mental health issues, and especially the critical situation in the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Palestine.
She has been published in Vogue, The Washington Post, and New Yorker, and has collaborated with major companies such as Apple, the BBC, and the Tate Modern. Her first graphic novel deals with body dysmorphia, a topic that has interested her since attending a mental health class in college, and her first exhibition was at the Anderson Gallery, also at Virginia Commonwealth University. Although her presence was virtually nonexistent during the election period, Rama has indeed taken care of her husband's image and was the mastermind behind creating the campaign logo using the two most identifiable colors of the city, the yellow of the Metrocard and the blue of the Mets.
Zohran and Rama met in 2021 like many young people in a simple way through a dating app. Both had profiles on Hinge and chemistry magically emerged because "I barely swiped right," joked the new mayor of New York in an interview. He confessed at the time, as reported by the Times of India, that he saw in Rama's bio "something about housing justice and halal cart politics."
They dated for a little over three years until in December 2024, they had a nikah ceremony in Dubai attended by some of their closest family and friends; the following February, they had a civil ceremony at the municipal clerk's office in Lower Manhattan and in July, they took a break from the campaign to have a lavish wedding in Uganda, the groom's family's homeland.
This special day was celebrated at the vast property owned by Zohran's parents in Buziga Hill, one of the most exclusive areas on the outskirts of Kampala, the capital of the African country. To ensure the tranquility of the three-day celebration, the New York Post revealed through an anonymous source that "outside Mamdani's house, there were over 20 guards from the special forces command unit, some wearing masks, and there was a phone interference system installed."
According to the American newspaper, the mansion, located on an 8,000 square meter plot, is surrounded by lush vegetation, offers priceless views of Lake Victoria, and has three security gates.