New York City councilman and State Assembly shoo-in Charles Barron has reiterated his admiration of dictators and said he hopes to host one of them — Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe — in the states … again.

“I would love for him to come to Albany. I would love for him to come anywhere in the United States, really,” Barron said in a recent interview with the New York Observer. “I think he’s a shining example of an African leader on the African continent.”

Barron famously hosted Mugabe as city councilman in 2002.

Mugabe took control of Zimbabwe in 1983 and instituted martial law in 1987. He rose to power after starting an ethnic cleansing in which tens of thousands of people were murdered, the Observer reports. Barron praised him because he seized land from white landowners and redistributed it to black Africans.

“No one’s perfect,” Barron told the Observer. “I see him as a freedom fighter.”

Barron has expressed support for dictators around the world, including Libyan dictator Muammar el-Quaddafi and Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro.

He told the Observer, “All my heroes were America’s enemies.”

Barron is expected to beat his Republican opponent for a New York Assembly seat handily. The Observer reports that he is running to replace his wife in the Assembly, who in turn is replacing him as city councilman.

Follow Rachel on Twitter