SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 28: A majority of American Muslims are likely to support the Democratic Party in the Nov 7 mid-term elections, in which, according to several polls, President George Bush’s Republican Party is likely to lose control of the Congress.
And a Muslim candidate from the Democratic Party, Keith Ellison, is expected to become the first Muslim to win a congressional seat.
Minnesota’s State Senator Ellison is the favourite in his Congressional District, which is considered to be a Democratic citadel. The district has not returned a Republican candidate since 1960.
According to a survey of Muslim voters conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), 42 per cent of Muslims consider themselves members of the Democratic Party while only 17 per cent are Republican. Another 28 per cent do not belong to any party.
Apparently the American Muslim voters are leaning towards the Democratic Party because of the Bush administration’s policies that substantially curtailed civil liberties of the seven-million strong Muslim community in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept 11, 2001.
In the Nov 2000 presidential election American Muslims voted en bloc for the Republican candidate, George Bush, who was the governor of Texas at that time. According to a former Congressman, Paul Findley, about 3.2 million Muslims turned out to vote and 65 per cent voted for President Bush.
There is a widespread dissatisfaction in the Muslim American community with the Bush administration’s treatment of Muslims since the Sept 11 attacks. Among the policies that have alienated Muslims are those allowing racial profiling of Muslim men, the use of secret evidence in cases said to touch on national security, and the detention and deportation of many individuals without the right to legal representation.
