Florence Eshalomi has beaten off competitors to win the Lambeth and Southwark GLA seat for the Labour Party by a massive majority this afternoon.
She conquered six rival parties by securing 96,946 votes, including the Conservative’s Robert Flint who received only 34,703 votes.
Labour have maintained their Lambeth and Southwark seat after Valerie Shawcross won 52.8% of the vote in Lambeth and Southwark four years ago.
Ms Eshalomi said: “I’m feeling excited and very, very grateful to the wonderful residents across Lambeth and Southwark for giving me this opportunity and voting for me.
“This election has been very positive and I’m very proud of being part of Team Labour across London.
She later tweeted “Now let’s turn City Hall red!”
Yesterday’s voting saw 43% of Lambeth and Southwark turn out to vote.
Earlier today Ms Eshalomi tweeted a picture of herself with a new hair style to go hand in hand with her new position on the London Assembly.
The Lambeth Councillor has come a long way since starting her working life at 16 with a job in Sainsburys before becoming the first member of her family to attend university, studying politics and law.
In 2006 she was elected to represent Brixton Hill ward on Lambeth Council, a position she has maintained.
“Out of 63 councillors not a lot of them looked like me and their policies affect people like me,” she said.
“I wanted to find out what was going on in that town hall I walked past every day.”
As a cabinet member, she has previously campaigned to save Lambeth libraries and worked for the United Kingdom’s leading race equality think-tank.
During her campaign she also has come out with Mayoral favourite Sadiq Khan in support of delivering more affordable homes, giving Londoners ‘first dibs’ on these homes, and taking action on rents to fix the housing crisis.
“For me, the top priority has to be housing and how to fix the housing crisis across Lambeth and Southwark.”
She said the Mayor needed to work with the councillors who decide on planning applications and that he could not do it by himself.
Ms Eshalomi also beat off competition from Green Party candidate Rashid Nix who claimed 25,793 votes along with Liberal Democrats candidate Michael Buloka, UK Independence Party candidate Idham Ramadi, Socialist Party’s Kevin Parkin and All People’s Party and Amadu Kanumansa who trailed behind with 906 votes.
She lives in Brixton with husband Matthew and baby Mia and also cares for her mother who suffers from sickle cell anaemia.
