The race to rule London

GARY YOUNGE On 4 May, Londoners go to the polls to elect both a Mayor and an Assembly. More than a quarter of the voters and a third of the population is black or Asian. An election which has already proved extraordinary in many ways presents an unprecedented opportunity for ethnic minorities. When people get into the polling booth next week, they will face an embarrassment of riches - four votes, two for Mayor and two for the Assembly. Patrick Dunleavy, Professor of Government at the London School of Economics, believes the introduction of a dual voting system could mark the beginning of an erosion of traditional party loyalties.

PATRICK DUNLEAVY The new elections for Wales, Scotland, the Northern Ireland Assembly and London Mayor are PR [proportional representation] elections. This is a big change, it's not going to go away and I think black and Asian interest groups and those inside the major parties will get more leverage because of that.

GY But Africans and Afro-Caribbeans have proved consistently reluctant to go to the polls. Turnout is especially low among the young who find themselves over-represented on the dole queues and under-represented in the main parties. Simon Woolley, the Chair of Operation Black Vote, a group dedicated to increasing black and Asian participation in the political process, believes this sense of disenfranchisement has often been misconstrued.

SIMON WOOLLEY It has little to do with laziness or apathy - it is a conscious opt-out of a system that has consistently failed to address the black concerns, so people say "Why bother?". What we've been able to do with these Mayoral elections is to turn that cynicism on its head and say to the black community, "You can hold the politicians by the short and curlies, because they need your vote to take high office and if you have a shopping list of demands it will be political suicide for them to ignore you". Now that is extremely empowering.

GY This is devolution in action. As in Wales and Scotland people feel they have greater access to the levers of power at a more meaningful level. There are of course vast differences between the experiences of the main ethnic minority groups. Those of Indian descent are more likely to be home owners than anybody else including whites. Africans and Afro-Caribbeans are the least likely. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are poorer than any other group but they are also more likely to be self- employed.

Despite the disparities Dr Shamit Sagar, a senior lecturer in Government at Queen Mary and Westfield College at the University of London, says that when it comes to voting patterns, all ethnic minorities have moved consistently and persistently in the same direction.

SHAMIT SAGAR Almost all black and Asians who vote in all the elections for which we have data which now goes back over quarter of a century, have voted for the Labour Party year in year out, and that describes a very solid political constituency. They all behave in a very similar way and it's therefore meaningful to describe them as being either a black or black and Asian vote. However to describe this group of voters as sharing all the same political interests would be a wide exaggeration.

GY Any politician who wants to be taken seriously by black and Asian voters has to come up with a plan for reforming the Metropolitan police. Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor, Susan Kramer:

SUSAN KRAMER I think you have to change the senior ranks of the Metropolitan Police. I'm going to ask businesses to second senior people from the Asian or Afro-Caribbean community to senior ranks in the Met for one or two years so that at that level of decision- making there are people who represent diverse communities and people who also act as mentors and role models for those who are moving up through the system.

GY The Conservatives believe that with a change in style, they too can make substantial headway among black and Asian voters. When it comes to race, their candidate Stephen Norris is on the more liberal wing of the party.

STEPHEN NORRIS It is a matter of fact that the Tories have had a poor record generally in accessing ethnic minority communities. When you look at the sort of complaints that the ethnic minority groups, particularly the black community, have about policing in London, their concern is not about the proposition that you may need to stop and search people to detect or prevent crime - I think most people understand that - but the manner in which this happens. We believe that it is all too infrequently done with respect. It's done insolently, it's done impolitely.

GY Race equality, says the Green candidate Darren Johnson, is at the core of their programme.

DARREN JOHNSON We're being very strident about the need in the Metropolitan police for an independent complaints and disciplinary unit to deal with aspects of racism in the Metropolitan police. We accept that the police can't be left to police themselves but we don't just want to see lots of well meaning glossy reports which are not acted upon. What I also want to see is a systematic evaluation of the impact of all policies in the GLA for ethnic minorities.