Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has a message for New Yorkers – expect dark days ahead if you elect socialist Zohran Mamdani your next mayor.
Suarez – whose parents escaped Cuba as young refugee children in the early 1960s during Fidel Castro’s communist dictatorship – compared Mamdani to a young Castro during an interview with The Post Friday.
He also said he’s “genuinely worried” about NYC residents heading into the Nov. 4 mayoral election, which the Democratic nominee Mamdani is favored to win.
“[New York City] is going down a very dark path, and it’s sad,” said Suaraz, the son of Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor, Xavier Suarez.
“There’s some people that say — and I am not one of them — that maybe [electing a socialist mayor in NYC] is best for America in a backwards way because, once you see the abject failure that it will be, there will be a correction and a reset. But I don’t want people to suffer for that to happen.”
The Republican said New Yorkers “should be terrified” of socialism and communism — not embrace it.
“My parents fled [Cuba] . . . because a young charismatic leader said ‘Give us all your property, give us all your businesses, and don’t worry, we’ll make everybody equal.’ And he did,” said Suarez.
“He made everybody equally poor, equally miserable, and equally repressed. And that’s all that communism has delivered throughout the history of humanity.”
This is not the first time Suarez has attacked Mamdani. He poked fun at the socialist on Instagram last month by posting video of himself bench-pressing 225 pounds 13 times next to Mamdani famously struggling to lift 135 pounds at a Brooklyn “Men’s Day” event, with the caption “Socialism VS Capitalism.”
Miami is hosting a major leadership summit called American Business Forum Nov. 5-6 – after Election Day – in part because the “Capital of Latin America” wants to show how “different we are” than the socialist-loving Big Apple, so it could accelerate its growth as a “truly great global city, according to Suarez.
Mamdani declined to comment.
Suarez, Miami’s mayor since 2017, is term-limited and not seeking re-election.
However, his father Xavier, who served as the mayor from 1985 to 1993 and then for another six months from November 1997 to March 1998, is mounting a political comeback and running for the seat.
The younger Suarez has not made any endorsements in the Miami race — despite his father running — but told The Post “I wish him very well.” He also said he’s not planning to make an endorsement in the NYC race, but said he has a “good relationship” with Mayor Eric Adams, a Dem seeking re-election as an independent.
