Former ABC campaign manager to run for mayor of Vancouver in 2026 | Daily Hive

Former ABC campaign manager Kareem Allam to run for mayor of Vancouver in 2026

Kareem Allam. (Kareem Allam/Submitted)

Kareem Allam is the first candidate to announce his bid for mayor of Vancouver in the October 2026 civic election.

“I’ve effectively made the decision to run. And so, I’m in the race,” Allam told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview on Monday afternoon.

A seasoned political strategist, Allam is known for leading the successful campaigns of Kevin Falcon’s BC Liberals (now BC United) leadership race and Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver party’s landslide victory in the October 2022 civic election. After ABC’s win, he served as the Chief of Staff for Sim’s Mayor’s Office for about four months, until February 2023.

He also ran Erin O’Toole’s federal Conservative leadership campaign, and currently serves as a consultant for government, First Nations, and other entities.

You might also like:

Allam says in recent weeks, he has been overwhelmed by support from people he has worked with in campaigns across the region.

“The encouragement became louder and louder… I’m actually really quite humbled by all of it,” he said, with the decision to pull the trigger made this past weekend.

Allam told Daily Hive Urbanized that he will be filing with Elections BC this week to legally begin raising funds for his upcoming campaign.

He has already formed an Exploration Committee, which is considering three options for his campaign approach: running as an independent (similar to how Kennedy Stewart was first elected as mayor in 2018), starting a new civic political party, or joining an existing party, which could involve merging some existing parties.

Allam’s decision underscores a sharp shift from his previous alliances, as he now goes up against his former boss and further distances himself from ABC.

He has been highly publicly critical of Sim and ABC for more than a year, previously going as far as endorsing select candidates running against ABC in the recent Vancouver City Council by-election, which saw ABC’s candidates trailing considerably behind other major party candidates.

“I’m doing this because I care for the city. And I’m doing this because I think I could do a better job than Ken Sim,” said Allam.

Allam says he has been particularly opposed to ABC’s continued high property tax increases, particularly those made early on in their office term, as well as the previous decampment strategy on Hastings Street in the Downtown Eastside and Sim’s proposal to remove the separately elected Vancouver Park Board.

Allam drew inspiration from a recent comment by Prime Minister Mark Carney, who declared to U.S. President Donald Trump that “Canada is not for sale.” Echoing that sentiment in a local context, Allam remarked: “I’ve been hearing a lot about the Park Board and a lot of people think that it’s not going to be the next issue in the next election. And to invoke Mark Carney’s words, ‘I’ve been speaking to the owners of Vancouver and our parks and our Park Board are not for sale.'”

“In this time, we do not get rid of democratically elected boards without citizen input,” he added.

He says his campaign will focus on saving the Park Board’s elected body, coupled with general governance transparency issues, as well as economic issues.

Last week, in a statement to Daily Hive Urbanized, Sim expressed frustration over the provincial government’s delays in moving legislative amendments to the Vancouver Charter to enable the dissolution of the Park Board’s elected body. Upon inquiry, B.C. Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Ravi Kahlon said the provincial government is committed to considering the City of Vancouver’s request, but was unable to introduce legislation during the spring legislative session due to its focus on more pressing economic matters. The next legislative session is this fall.

Allam says he plans to gradually transfer his consultancy firm’s clients to his partners over the summer to allow him to focus full-time on his campaign.

“I’m trying to bring a real, meaningful change to Vancouver,” he said.

But he also noted that he could reconsider his candidacy if other higher-calibre candidates, whom he supports politically, choose to enter the race.

Beyond the emerging political battlefield, both Sim and Allam are also currently engaged in a legal battle; last month, Sim filed a lawsuit against two individuals, including Allam, over alleged defamatory comments, claiming the mayor had been pulled over by the Vancouver Police in early November 2022 for driving under the influence and using his position to cover up the incident. A subsequent investigation led by the RCMP that reviewed the conduct of the parties and individuals involved, with the findings later reviewed by the Abbotsford Police, found no cover-up.

You might also like: