Mohammad Asghar
Politician who became the first Muslim councillor in Wales
MOHAMMAD ASGHAR, who has died aged 74, was Wales’s first Muslim councillor and the first ethnic-minority member of the Welsh Assembly; in an eventful political career he changed party three times.
Joining the Conservatives after first arriving in Newport, “Oscar”, as he was known to his colleagues, was elected a Labour councillor in 2004. He won his seat in the Assembly in 2007 representing Plaid Cymru, then two years later crossed the floor to the Tories.
Paying tribute to him, the Secretary of State for Wales, Simon Hart, said: “Mohammad Asghar was an extremely significant figure in Welsh politics, and has contributed so much to his community and the country since settling here as a young man.”
Proud to be British and Welsh, and proud of his roots in what is now Pakistan, he ran with the Olympic torch in Pakistan in 1964, and campaigned for Wales to have its own cricket team. He was a qualified pilot, and spoke Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi fluently.
Asghar was a devoted family man. A Plaid Cymru MEP’S readiness to give his daughter Natasha work experience influenced his switch from Labour – and the “straw that broke the camel’s back” with the Plaid was its refusal to let him employ her in his office. Natasha fought elections for Plaid and the Conservatives, and is now a presenter with the shopping channel QVC.
In 2011 Asghar was accused of insensitivity after urging Conservatives in Newport to propose his wife for a vacancy on the council, two days after the death of the incumbent. He admitted his critics had been right to accuse him of “appallingly bad taste”.
The same year, he was barred from the city’s two largest Sunni mosques by court order after intervening in an internal power struggle. The matter was settled, but Asghar went on to sue four members of the mosques for libel for claiming he was opposed to their being run democratically.
Mohammad Asghar was born on September 30 1945 in Peshawar, British India, to Aslam Khan and Zubaida Aslam. Graduating from Peshawar University in 1968, he moved to London to complete a Business degree, then in 1972 settled in Newport, where he qualified as an accountant. From 1983 he ran his own firm.
Asghar became Wales’s first Muslim councillor when, as a Labour candidate, he was elected for Newport’s Victoria Ward. Soon after, he broke with the party and joined the nationalist Plaid Cymru.
He fought Newport East for the Plaid at the 2005 general election, then in 2007 was elected to the Assembly as a list member for South Wales East.
“Oscar” made a considerable impact at Cardiff Bay, but soon fell out with the Plaid leadership and in December 2009 became the Assembly’s first member to cross the floor, back to the Conservatives. He said that as a royalist and a unionist he was “out of tune” with Plaid policies, feeling like “a little parrot in a jungle”.
For the 2011 Assembly elections, the Conservatives readopted Asghar for South Wales East – though only, dissident local Tories claimed, after a warning from the party chairman’s office that not picking him would be construed as racism.
Re-elected in 2011 (and again in 2016) he was appointed Shadow Minister for Equalities and Sport. Since 2018 he had held the Further Education, Faith and Skills portfolio. Weeks before his sudden death, the Assembly was renamed the Senedd.
Asghar chaired both the Conservative Friends of Pakistan and the Conservative Friends of India. He was nominated for Politician of the Year in the British Muslim Awards for 2014 and 2015.
Mohammad Asghar married his wife, Firdaus, in 1983. She and their daughter survive him.