Meet the Candidates: Leon El-Alamin

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted in mid-August 2026; some information in this article, including the Sept. 9 ruling in the election fraud case, reflects developments that occurred after the interview, and discusses allegations of domestic violence and includes descriptions of physical assault. Leon El-Alamin has pleaded not guilty to all charges described below, and both criminal cases remain pending; nothing in this article should be read as a determination of guilt. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available locally through the YWCA of Greater Flint SafeHouse 24-hour crisis line at 810-238-7233, or nationally through the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, by text (text START to 88788), or by chat at thehotline.org.

FLINT, Michigan — There are two versions of Leon El-Alamin occupying Flint’s political life right now: the 1st Ward councilman who “has some awesome residents that have held me down since day one,” and the defendant named in two separate criminal cases moving through Genesee County’s courts.

El-Alamin has held the 1st Ward seat since 2024. He’s also, for the past year, been fighting two separate criminal cases — one alleging he assaulted the mother of his son, the other alleging he lied about where he lived when he first ran for office. In his first interview since the charges became public, he sat down with Flintside to address both directly.

The election fraud case centers on a felony charge tied to an affidavit El-Alamin filed April 12, 2024, to qualify as a candidate. According to Genesee County Chief Assistant Prosecutor John Potbury, police alerted the prosecutor’s office to the alleged falsification in December 2025, and the prosecutor formally filed the charge this July.

Prosecutor David Leyton has said investigators canvassed the Mt. Morris Township neighborhood where residents told police El-Alamin had lived for years, then visited the Flint address listed on his affidavit — where a tenant told them she, not El-Alamin, lived there, and that he was her landlord. If convicted, El-Alamin faces up to five years in prison and would be removed from the November ballot.

Asked directly about the situation, he didn’t hesitate.

“It’s not true,” he said.

Asked whether he lived at the address listed on his 2024 candidacy affidavit, he answered just as plainly: “Yep.”

He said the residency question isn’t new. “This was addressed, and it was shot down. It was no merit,” he said, referring to his original 2024 campaign. “The state, everybody…this is one of the first things they look at when you try to be an elected official. It’s all coordinated to try and sway public opinion against me.”

Though he did not provide Flintside with documentation confirming an earlier review took place, Flintside filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the City of Flint seeking copies of El-Alamin’s 2024 and 2026 candidacy affidavits to independently verify the addresses listed on each. The city had not responded to that request as of publication. Flintside checked with the Genesee County Clerk’s office records, which listed the Mott address.

The assault case carries more serious charges: a felony count of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder or by strangulation, a misdemeanor domestic violence count, and a habitual offender enhancement tied to his earlier conviction. Mount Morris Township police filed the charges after responding to the July 10, 2025 incident. The evidence presented described bruising on her face, marks on her neck, and strands of hair on the floor.

If convicted of the felony charge, El-Alamin faces up to 10 years in prison. Council and community members have publicly called for his removal from council over the charges.

El-Alamin disputes the account and says the woman making the allegations — the mother of his son — no longer wants to pursue it.

“The allegations supposedly [have] been with my son’s mother, which, if you’ve been following it, has declined and will not come to court to testify,” he said.

That characterization is partly borne out by the record, and partly complicated by it. At a June 2026 hearing, defense attorney Rolland Sizemore III raised concerns after the prosecutor’s office indicated the woman might no longer wish to testify. Prosecutors confirmed she has not responded to a subpoena — but said they intend to proceed with the case regardless, using testimony she already gave at a preliminary examination months earlier. Flintside reached out to her directly for comment on this story; she declined to respond.

El-Alamin provided Flintside with a documented Genesee County court order showing that a personal protection order she filed against him in July 2025 was terminated in March 2026. A terminated PPO, however, is a civil matter and is separate from the criminal case, which the state prosecutes.

El-Alamin sees both cases as connected to a pattern, in his telling, of political adversaries working against him.

“I got political adversaries, individuals who want to see me fail because I’m not someone they handpicked to be in this position,” he said.

But to understand how El-Alamin got here, you have to go back to Flint’s north side, decades before either case existed.

El-Alamin was raised mostly by his grandmother while his mother struggled with addiction, in a household trying to hold together him and his siblings on one income. “It was more or less, how can I make some money to contribute to our family and help,” he said of those years, before life pulled him into selling drugs before he was old enough to vote. He watched people he loved die over it.

“I seen my best friend get killed over $10 in a dice game by someone we grew up with,” he said. “I knew deep inside that wasn’t something I wanted to be my reality.”

It caught up with him anyway. El-Alamin was shot and left for dead by people he used to work with, then arrested on firearm and drug distribution charges. He served seven years, from 2003 to 2010, and came home determined to be someone else.

Re-entry was difficult. El-Alamin described the barriers of finding housing and jobs because of his record.

“I continuously ran into many barriers. Being a two-time felon, having that stigma on my back even though I had served my time — it was a challenge to even try to get in college. I was being denied jobs because of the felony,” he said. “So myself and a couple individuals that I came home around the same time, we all stuck together and kept pushing forward out here in the community as activists.”

That determination became the MADE Institute, the nonprofit El-Alamin founded in 2015 to help formerly incarcerated men and women, and at-risk youth, find housing, jobs, and a way back in.

“The system was set up for us to fail,” he said, “so my focus and passion have become making sure I’m in a position to provide second chances for others, individuals like me.”

He took an interest in politics, going to school board, city council, and other meetings. Discouraged by the “circus-type environment,” he ran for city council in 2010, the same year he came home, with the strategy of wanting “people to know that I’m here to help.” He’d lose to Eric Mays, who’d go on to represent the 1st Ward for more than a decade. The two built a rapport over the years, and when Mays died in February 2024, El-Alamin says running for the seat wasn’t his idea.

“Councilman Eric Mays had passed, and the residents came up to me, and they encouraged me, asked me would I run,” El-Alamin said. “I was hesitant, but I saw that they were trying to bring people who wasn’t from our ward to be in that position, and I knew if that happened, we wouldn’t get represented right. So, I threw my hat in the race, and I was successful.”

That path brought El-Alamin to the council seat he now holds and to his decision to speak publicly.

He’s also running for a different seat than the one he currently holds. Through the city’s redistricting, the redrawn ward lines have moved his residence — both previously on Mott Avenue and currently on Parkwood Avenue — into Flint’s 3rd Ward.

“The area where I stay used to be a part of the 1st Ward — it’s now part of the 3rd Ward,” he said. “So, I’ll be running for the 3rd Ward.”

It means reintroducing himself, block by block, to people who’ve never had him as their councilman. “The same residents that I’ve built a good rapport with over these last several years, I’m now having to introduce myself to a new audience,” he said.

Beyond the introductions, El-Alamin said the 3rd Ward’s needs aren’t drastically different from the 1st’s, with a few exceptions he wants to address — including the absence of a functioning school or a senior center in the ward, and ongoing economic development projects he wants to support.

As for why he chose to finally speak now, after largely staying quiet since the charges came out, El-Alamin points to his attorneys. “A lot of this stuff that is happening to me is new,” he said. “I take advice from my attorneys, and I try not to speak or move beyond first consulting with them, just because this is an ongoing case. I feel like it’s time now that I can start speaking a little more on this.”

And what does he want people to take from it?

“Over the past several months, my family and I have endured repeated allegations, delays, and accusations that have become a distraction from the work the people of Flint elected me to do,” El-Alamin said. “I have always believed in the rule of law and due process. I will continue to defend myself through the legal process, and I’m confident that the truth will come to light.”

He continued:

“No one should be judged by allegations alone. Every person deserves fairness, due process, and the opportunity to have the facts heard before conclusions are drawn. I ask the voters of Flint to look beyond headlines and political noise — judge me by my character, my commitment, my service, and the results I’ve delivered, not by accusations that have yet to be proven in a court of law.”

A Genesee County judge bound El-Alamin’s election fraud case over to circuit court on Sept. 9, 2026, following a preliminary examination — meaning it will now proceed to trial. His trial on the assault charge is scheduled for Oct. 14, 2026. Both dates land within weeks of the Nov. 3 general election, in which he’s asking 3rd Ward voters to elect him to the seat he currently holds for a different ward.