2010 The first election took place on Thursday 21 October 2010, with a 25.6 per cent turn out. The new mayor officially took office on Monday 25 October 2010.
2014 In April 2015, this election was
declared void by an
election court. Councillor Rabina Khan initially announced that she would stand as the
Tower Hamlets First candidate. However, as a result of findings in the election court case against Lutfur Rahman, Tower Hamlets First was removed from the register of political parties by the
Electoral Commission as the party was not operating a responsible financial scheme and the running of the party did not follow the documentation given in the party's registration. Khan subsequently stood as an independent candidate. Andy Erlam is a writer and film-maker who led the
legal action against Rahman which resulted in the previous election being declared void. He had previously stood elsewhere as a Parliamentary candidate for Labour, then as the first candidate fielded by "Red Flag Anti-Corruption" in the
Tower Hamlets Council elections on 22 May 2014. Red Flag Anti-Corruption had also fielded two parliamentary candidates in the
2015 UK general election, Jason Pavlou for
Bethnal Green and Bow and
Rene Claudel Mugenzi for
Poplar and Limehouse, both within Tower Hamlets. Liberal Democrat Elaine Bagshaw and UKIP candidate Nicholas McQueen both stood for their respective parties in
Poplar and Limehouse at the
2015 general election.
2018 John Biggs defended the seat for Labour. Following a split in the former Tower Hamlets First group, Cllr Rabina Khan stood again, as the candidate for her new party, the
People's Alliance of Tower Hamlets (PATH) while Cllr Ohid Ahmed stood for
Aspire, which emerged from the post-Tower Hamlets First Tower Hamlets Independent Group. The Conservative Party selected Anwara Ali MBE, a local GP and, until 2010, local Labour councillor. The Liberal Democrats selected Elaine Bagshaw, their 2015 candidate. In August 2018, Khan wound up PATH and joined the Liberal Democrats.
2022 Biggs sought to defend his seat for Labour. In January 2022, Liberal Democrat councillor
Rabina Khan was announced as the party's candidate for the mayoralty. Independent councillor Andrew Wood, who had resigned from the Conservative group in 2020, announced he would stand for election as both a councillor and mayor. Former mayor of the borough,
Lutfur Rahman, announced his candidacy for the Aspire party in February 2022. Rahman's five-year ban from standing for election, having been found guilty by an election court of "corrupt and illegal practices", had elapsed. He was endorsed at his formal campaign launch in March by the former mayor of London
Ken Livingstone and the peer
Pola Uddin. Rahman won the election with a final vote share of 54.9%, unseating incumbent
John Biggs and taking the mayoralty for the second time.
2026 {{Election box begin Percentage change is in comparison to First round results from 2022 ==List of elected mayors==