Hamtramck — Political neophyte Adam Alharbi defeated City Council member Muhith Mahmood Tuesday by 11 votes in a hotly contested race to be the new mayor of a city scarred by controversy and scandal.

Alharbi won 44.5% of the vote (2,009 votes) to Mahmood's 44.3% (1,998 votes) in a bid to replace Mayor Amer Ghalib, who is nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait but has encountered opposition because of his past policy and social media statements on Middle East politics. Alharbi is an engineer and immigrant from Yemen, while Mahmood is an immigrant from Bangladesh in the multiethnic enclave of Detroit.

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