Reminiscent of most electoral outcomes in Africa, United States of America’s President, Donald Trump, has refused to congratulate his opponent, Joe Biden, of the Democratic Party, who has been declared winner of the nail-biting long drawn presidential poll.
Instead, the Republican has approached the U.S Supreme Court to challenge the victory of Biden in decisive states such as Pennsylvania. Despite several media agencies naming Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 U.S Presidential Elections, Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York and Trump’s lawyer has stated that the U.S. President will not concede the election at this point and that the race is “far from over,” alleging high level voter fraud which would be handled in the court.
Trump’s team has brought legal challenges in several states he would need to retake the election from Biden. On November 3, Election Day, Trump had more votes in battleground states than Biden, but since Trump’s lead began to slip in several battleground states as more mail-in ballots which favoured Biden were counted, the President has claimed that the election was being “stolen” from him and has alleged massive fraud.
After Biden was declared the winner on Saturday, November 7, Trump said in a statement, “We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over.”
Trump’s campaign and other Republicans have already mounted challenges to Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting system, access for poll watchers and other details of the processes of the poll.
The case at the Supreme Court involves a Republican appeal to exclude ballots that arrived after Election Day in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
The election saw, for the first time in history, a larger voting population and voting surge among blacks and Latinos. It is also the first in the history of America to have recorded 239, 247,182 eligible voter population.
While Americans await the outcome of the legal challenge mounted by Trump, expectations are high that Biden would most likely come out victorious, considering that he won states that are traditionally the stronghold of Republicans.
Biden administration’s approach will largely depend on policy and who the President appoints in his cabinet and senior positions, especially that of Secretary of State, Assistant secretary of State for Africa, and the administrator of U.S Agency for International Development (USAID).