Mosques, flyers, Palestine flags: Inside Muslim Vote’s war to win Sydney’s southwest

Muslim Vote volunteers have leafleted mosques, distributed tens of thousands of flyers and decked Lakemba in Palestine flags as its campaign to topple two Labor ministers ramps up.

A Knafeh stall sports a Palestine flag and “free Palestine” lettering at its 2024 “Lakemba Nights” Ramadan stall in Lakemba. Picture: John Appleyard

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The Muslim Vote’s army of volunteers have leafleted mosques, distributed tens of thousands of flyers and decked Lakemba in Palestine flags as the political campaign ramps up its efforts to topple two Labor ministers.

Federal parliament, one volunteer said, needed more Muslim Vote-backed candidates to break its “Zio-controlled narrative” (Zio is an offensive term for Zionist) as campaigners prepared to accelerate its Gaza-centric campaign in Sydney’s southwest amid community anger with Labor.

Insider information from the movement comes amid the resumption of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and possibly only 10 days before Anthony Albanese fires a starting gun on May’s federal poll.

It also comes as Sydney’s Lakemba Mosque on Thursday was subject to a shooting threat, with an Instagram user posting on the mosque’s account “Christchurch again please”.

NSW Premier Chris Minns called the post “truly disgusting”, confirming that NSW police had launched an “urgent investigation”, which follows a similar threat towards a different mosque in early March.

Founded by Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, The Muslim Vote – separate from the Muslim Votes Matter campaign sharing a similar name – is mobilising volunteers and how-to-vote cards, with a particular focus to dump Labor ministers Tony Burke, in Watson, and Jason Clare, in Blaxland.

Although not a registered party, the campaign played a key role establishing the independent campaigns of Ziad Basyouny and Ahmed Ouf in Watson and Blaxland respectively, whose operations it is helping to co-ordinate.

The Australian can reveal that on top of each candidate’s own teams, The Muslim Vote’s 60-plus “core” volunteers have devised scripts for canvassers to better ­articulate their anti-ALP message and canvassed at prominent mosques across the two divisions, which has become a campaign focus.

Watson independent candidate Ziad Basyouny. Picture: Nikki Short

Independent candidate Ahmed Ouf, who is running in Blaxland. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Volunteers have leafleted almost all the area’s mosques, with campaigners being divided between locations to better maximise resources.

One of the campaign’s co-ordinators said across one night, volunteers had attended 16 mosques, distributing 10,000-plus flyers.

On two occasions, vandals also stole and defaced Mr Clare’s corflutes that had been pinned to the front fence of Auburn’s Gallipoli Mosque – a Sunni Islam masjid with a predominantly Turkish-Australian congregation that is supportive of the education minister – with insiders from both sets of warring camps expecting the “gloves to come off” once the election is called.

Muslim Vote campaigners have also been deployed with leaflets, corflutes and A-frame posters across southwest Sydney’s Ramadan night markets in Lakemba and Auburn.

For the “Lakemba Nights” event, where food stalls take over Haldon St for the holy month’s duration, volunteers installed more 20 large Palestine flags above shop fronts.

Volunteers have been devising “scripts” for colleagues to better convince voters, with one suggesting that volunteers raise Labor’s lack of support for academic Randa Abdel-Fattah – whose research grant was recently suspended – and dumped Creative Australia artist Khaled Sabsabi.

Mr Clare’s Blaxland and Mr Burke’s Watson are both held with about a 15 per cent margin. Muslim voters make up 35 per cent and 27 per cent of the community respectively in the two seats.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, left, the MP for Watson, and Education Minister Jason Clare, MP for Blaxland. Picture: Martin Ollman

For the ALP, the premise adopted since the Muslim Vote’s mid-2024 inception hasn’t changed: cautiously confident, but wary of a British-style upset, which has meant the two ministers have prioritised their own local campaigns more than in 2022.

In Watson, which takes in some of the Muslim community’s largest places of worship, there’s a belief that Mr Burke’s longstanding work for the community will be rewarded, particularly as two distinct “pro” and “anti” Muslim Vote camps have emerged among voters of that faith.

However, the Home Affairs Minister is not taking anything for granted, particularly given the resumption of airstrikes on Gaza, conducting a sweep of Ramadan-related electorate events in recent weeks.

At his February campaign launch, Mr Burke said pro-Palestine independents would seek to “divide” and while he would be “dragged out of the electorate” to contribute to the national campaign, he backed his camp’s “sense of cause”.

Sheikh Charkawi launched the Muslim Vote in mid-2024 and was allegedly targeted in December by Sydney woman Kelly Farrugia, who police allege attempted to run him down with his car.

He came under fire in February after appearing to defend two sacked Bankstown nurses who had vowed to “kill” Israeli patients, claiming their words should never have been taken seriously.

Sheik Wesam Charkawi, The Muslim Vote’s founder and convener. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The state Education Department, his employer, ordered him to work from home until that video was pulled from his social-media accounts, but that was met with community uproar. The department reversed its decision after discussions with Sheikh Charkawi’s solicitors.

Screenshots of messages shared between volunteers, obtained by The Australian, alleged the department’s order was a Labor ploy “on behalf of their Zio masters”.

Other campaigners said a Muslim voice needed to be in federal parliament, which had been “controlled” by a “Zio narrative”, and that Mr Minns had “capitulated” to the “Jewish lobby” in introducing stronger hate-speech laws.

The Muslim Vote had spruiked that it would endorse an unnamed Werriwa independent candidate, but six weeks later there has yet to be an announcement, with volunteers in the dark about whether it will run someone.

There is growing suspicion that the movement will ditch any possible candidate in Werriwa to instead pour resources into Watson and Blaxland, tactically supporting Liberal Sam Kayal, who appears set to topple Labor incumbent Anne Stanley.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the management of Auburn’s Gallipoli Mosque had taken down the corflutes.