Independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo on Saturday accused Zohran Mamdani of being untruthful about not recognizing a notoriously anti-LGBTQ Ugandan official, with whom Mamdani recently appeared in smiling photographs.
The controversial images and Mamdani’s reaction to the backlash have placed the Democratic nominee in New York City’s upcoming Nov. 4 mayoral election in a difficult position.
The photos were snapped at an airport in Uganda during Mamdani’s visit to his homeland for his wedding, following his surprising victory in the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary.
One of the pictures features Mamdani smiling alongside Rebecca Kadaga, Uganda’s first deputy prime minister and former parliament speaker, a prominent politician who, in 2012, supported a bill proposing the death penalty for homosexuality.
In another photo taken during the same meeting, the two are joined by the candidate’s father, Mahmood Mamdani.
Mamdani, the front-runner in the mayoral race, insists he was unaware of Kadaga’s identity when he posed with her. However, Cuomo, in a minute-long video released on X, denounced this as a falsehood.
“Zohran, you should be ashamed of yourself for appearing with a woman who advocated for capital punishment for gays, and doing so with a smile, and then deceiving the public about it,” the former governor declared.
“Zohran said he didn’t know who she was,” he continued. “It turns out, after reporting, that was a lie. His father knew Kadaga very well for many years. She’s a longtime, well-known public official. It was a lie and it was reprehensible especially to New Yorkers,” Cuomo said, adding that the bill was internationally condemned.
Mamdani on Saturday tried to push back on the ongoing controversy at a campaign event he held for National Coming Out Day.
“Had I known that she was the architect of this horrific legislation and attack on queer Ugandans, I would not have taken it,” he told reporters, according to NY1.
In addition, in connection with the photos, Cuomo on Monday called on Mamdani to renounce his dual Ugandan citizenship due to the African nation’s institutional homophobia.
“Why would you keep a citizenship in Uganda, which is a country that outlaws the LGBTQ community — why? Why be a citizen of that country?” Cuomo said.
“I believe in the LGBTQ community, and it would be a total act of hypocrisy to be a citizen of a country that abuses LGBTQ people,” Cuomo continued. “It’s pure hypocrisy.”
Mamdani was born in Uganda but moved to the U.S. as a child and became an American citizen in 2018.
Mamdani has said he didn’t know who Kadaga was when he took the photos with her, and called her extreme anti-gay legislative efforts a “horrific attack on queer Ugandans.”
But Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi told the Daily News that Cuomo is saying Mamdani flat-out lied by saying he didn’t know who Kadaga was when she approached him for a photo.
The Mamdani campaign has countered that Cuomo’s attack over Mamdani’s cheery pictures with the homosexual-hating Ugandan pol a distraction from more important issues.
“Andrew Cuomo’s recent behavior is increasingly Trumpian — issuing desperate personal attacks to distract from his lack of any vision or plans to address the affordability crisis,” said Mamdani spokeswoman Dora Pekec. “Does Cuomo want every dual citizen in a city of 3 million immigrants to give up their citizenship?”
Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Cuomo’s latest X post slamming the candidate as a liar.
Originally Published: October 11, 2025 at 9:53 PM EDT
