Calgary’s Nenshi becomes Canada’s first Muslim mayor

The underdog candidate ran a successful grassroots campaign and came out on top in one of the city’s closest elections in decades.

Calgary’s image has changed this morning, after the city often considered one of Canada’s most conservative urban centres elected an academic and visible minority named Naheed Nenshi as mayor. Nenshi’s opponents alderman Ric McIver and former CTV host Barb Higgins were much better funded, but he ran a solid campaign nicknamed the “Purple Revolution,” which was based largely on his charisma and targeted the youth vote through social networking sites like Facebook. In the end he came away with 39 per cent of the vote. Voter turnout was high, coming close to 50 per cent compared to only 33 per cent in 2007.