Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race was driven by a coordinated South Asian political machine with extensive links to Pakistani Marxist organizations, Islamist-aligned extremist networks, CCP-funded activist structures, and foreign influence operations that collectively shaped the election’s outcome.
The central engine of this operation was Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) and its political arm, DRUM Beats, two entities sharing the same address, leadership, and personnel, and which received roughly $20,000 from Mamdani’s campaign.
Behind DRUM’s organizing stood a tightly woven network of activists tied to Pakistan’s Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP), a radical socialist movement founded by Cambridge-educated historian Ammar Ali Jan and veteran leftist Farooq Tariq. The party is formally registered with Pakistan’s Election Commission and seeks to unify workers, peasants, students, and ethnic minorities under a socialist revolutionary program. HKP operates within the same global far-left ecosystem as The People’s Forum, the Tricontinental Institute, and other institutions funded by China-linked billionaire Neville Roy Singham.
Jan himself is a council member of the Progressive International, participates in programs with CCP-aligned groups, and maintains visible ties to U.S. activist institutions in Singham’s network.
HKP’s leadership worked directly with U.S.-based activists involved in Mamdani’s campaign. In January 2023, Ammar Ali Jan announced plans to build a “solidarity network for Pakistani activists in the U.S.” and identified three DRUM organizers, Raza Gillani, Mohiba Ahmed, and Zahid Ali, as key members. All three played active roles in DRUM’s pro-Mamdani efforts. Gillani, a Pakistani journalist and HKP co-founder, joined DRUM as a communications specialist and led campaign rallies with Mamdani standing behind him.
Mohiba Ahmed, an NYU graduate student and longtime HKP member, worked full time on the primary before returning to Pakistan to speak at HKP rallies. Zahid Ali, an HKP founding member and Rice University doctoral student, was praised by Jan as a “struggle partner” who helped secure Mamdani’s win. DRUM executive director Fahd Ahmed publicly highlighted his meetings with Jan, Gillani, and Ahmed, calling their exchanges “encouraging and impressive.”
DRUM’s director of organizing, Kazi Fouzia, oversaw the ground mobilization across immigrant neighborhoods. A Bangladeshi immigrant who entered the U.S. undocumented and later received asylum through a State Department exchange program, Fouzia described DRUM’s influence bluntly: “We’re like a gang. When we go to any shop, people move aside and say, ‘Oh my God. The DRUM leaders are here.’” Her dual role raises legal questions, as 501(c)(3) nonprofits like DRUM are barred from political campaigning, yet she publicly identifies herself as DRUM’s organizing director while directing political mobilization for Mamdani.
These networks did not operate alone. DRUM and DRUM Beats co-hosted events with The People’s Forum, a militant Marxist organization in New York that received more than $20 million from Neville Roy Singham between 2017 and 2022 through shell companies and donor-advised funds.
Singham, an American businessman based in Shanghai, has attended CCP propaganda forums, met with senior CCP officials, and financed institutions, including The People’s Forum, the Tricontinental Institute, and Dongsheng News, that echo pro-Beijing talking points, deny CCP human-rights abuses, and promote narratives aligned with China’s geopolitical interests. The People’s Forum glorifies the Chinese revolution, offers CCP propaganda courses, and partners with pro-PRC groups, while Dongsheng News, which shares its address, produces weekly pro-Beijing messaging.
The Program on Extremism at George Washington University identifies The People’s Forum as part of a Singham-funded network engaged in pro-Palestinian activism influenced by CCP-aligned entities. These ties triggered congressional scrutiny, with Senators Chuck Grassley and Marco Rubio and House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith demanding investigations into whether The People’s Forum and its affiliates acted as unregistered foreign agents in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Another key component of Mamdani’s support structure was the ANSWER Coalition, run by activists from the Workers World Party (WWP), a hardline Marxist-Leninist group the FBI once described as “dedicated to world revolution.” WWP has defended North Korea’s Kim regime, supported Saddam Hussein, justified the CCP’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, and opposed democratic movements in Hong Kong. ANSWER has been operated “to such an extent that it seems fair to call it a WWP front,” with senior officials, including spokesman Brian Becker, belonging to both organizations.
Shut It Down for Palestine, the national protest network behind major pro-Hamas demonstrations, is dominated by WWP and ANSWER activists and functions as a de facto WWP extension. The Network Contagion Institute reports that Shut It Down for Palestine has received significant support from CCP-aligned donors, amplifying narratives that weaken U.S. influence and bolster Beijing’s portrayal of itself as an anti-imperialist power.
ANSWER also works closely with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Marxist-Leninist organization that claims the United States is a “dictatorship of the capitalist class” that can only be dismantled through socialist revolution. PSL defends the Chinese Communist Party’s human-rights record, denies the Tiananmen Square massacre, supports Beijing’s repression in Hong Kong, and endorsed Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Although it did not formally endorse Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, PSL blamed the war on NATO and the United States. The House Committee on Oversight is investigating Singham’s financial support for PSL and the group’s role in violent disturbances, including the Los Angeles riots.
These far-left networks overlap with Islamist organizations implicated in Hamas-linked activism. Representatives Bruce Westerman and Paul Gosar detailed ANSWER’s partnerships with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and the Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation (AJP). Several activists in these groups have documented ties to Hamas-affiliated charities and Muslim Brotherhood front organizations dismantled by U.S. courts.
SJP and AMP founder Hatem Bazian previously raised funds for KindHearts, a Hamas-linked charity shut down after federal investigators determined it had assumed the Holy Land Foundation’s overseas accounts following that group’s conviction for sending $12.4 million to Hamas.
AMP’s executive director, Osama Abuirshaid, formerly worked for IAP’s newspaper, published material aligned with Hamas, and documented communications with Hamas officials. Other AMP leaders served in shuttered or sanctioned Hamas-connected entities. Senator Bill Cassidy has launched an inquiry into these groups, citing evidence of leadership with past or present ties to Hamas.
Mamdani also benefited from Islamist-aligned financial support. The Unity and Justice Fund PAC, associated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), donated approximately $128,500 to a pro-Mamdani super-PAC. CAIR has long faced scrutiny over alleged ties between some founders and individuals linked to extremist groups.
Foreign influence was further evident online. From June 1 to July 1, Mamdani’s Instagram following rose from 213,000 to nearly 3 million, a 1,295-percent surge, while TikTok engagement increased more than 1,000 percent. Analytics showed much of this activity originated from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, with hundreds of near-identical comments indicating coordinated foreign engagement rather than organic support from New York voters.
Financial disclosures revealed another vulnerability. Mamdani’s campaign received roughly $13,000 from donors listing foreign addresses; by October 14, ninety-one of those contributions had been refunded, totaling $5,723.50. The Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed criminal referrals alleging illegal foreign donations. Combined with DRUM’s nonprofit status, these contributions raise questions about unlawful political activity by foreign-linked networks and potential violations of U.S. campaign-finance law.
Taken together, the Pakistani Marxist activists, Islamist-aligned operatives, CCP-funded institutions, WWP and PSL networks, foreign digital amplification, and foreign-address donations show a mayoral campaign shaped by a transnational ecosystem of foreign ideological movements, extremist sympathizers, and political operatives, an influence nexus that poses serious legal, ethical, and national-security concerns.
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