A Biden victory will be great news for the African continent

The world is watching with keen interest as Americans wait to see who will become the US president after all the to-ing and fro-ing in the battle for the White House – and it’s not an easy process.

It was yesterday still a closely contested race with the final count focusing on the remaining key states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. Each of the candidates, President Donald Trump and former vice-president Joe Biden have hinted at victory, with Biden ahead in both popular and electoral college votes.

Early results showed Biden was ahead in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia and neck-and-neck with Trump in Pennsylvania. But if he is to remain in the White House, Trump must win Pennsylvania and Georgia. By early yesterday, Biden had overtaken the incumbent in Georgia and that left Trump with little, if any chance, of reelection.

He had to increase his Pennsylvania numbers and regain Georgia, but with mail-in votes favouring Biden, who was on the brink of overtaking the president in Pennsylvania, Trump appeared to be on the way out.

From the start of the counting process on election day on Tuesday, Trump declared victory, complained about possible fraud and cheating in the counting process and then mounted a legal challenge. But Biden was calm and appealed to the nation to wait and see, while insisting all votes be counted.

Trump’s victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a boost for the Republican party. Experts say the party had been losing its electoral strength since the late 1960s with its traditionally elderly, white constituency dwindling, while the young people and multiracial voters were more attracted to the Democratic Party.

Trump was a life-saver for the Republicans but, after four years in office, he had become a liability. His administration’s policies served to alienate many Republican voters and the undecided that could have backed the party. John Bellinger III, cofounder of Republican National Security Officials for Biden, said various voting blocs of diehard Republicans from the Bush administration pledged to cast their votes for Biden in the 2020 election because they hated Trump. He said both the Lincoln Project and George Bush Snr’s Alumni opposed Trump and voted against him.

According to Harvard University’s professor Thomas E Patterson, nine of out 10 Republican votes came from the non-Hispanic whites, a minority group in perpetual decline. The Democratic Party had made inroads into this group, with at least one percent voting for it in the 2020 election.

With the Democrats and Biden guaranteed votes among Hispanics, Asian-Americans and African-Americans, several political experts said unless Trump expanded his growth among these minorities, the consequences for him in this election were bound to be dire. Biden, on the other hand, delivered a uniting message and policies that provided solutions to the current problems, such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

His performance exceeded that of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and several other past Democratic presidents. Trump made himself unpopular at home and abroad. While many voted for him for his great “America First” economic policies, he was largely blamed for failing to address racial and social issues and was criticised for stringent border controls and undermining all scientifically approved efforts to fight Covid-19.

It’s his foreign policy that made him the enemy of many countries. He withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Change agreement and several other international pacts, including those with Western allies, in the interest of “America First”. Former ambassador Dr Johnnie Carson, now a senior advisor at the US Institute for Peace in Washington DC, said under Trump, Africa was not a priority.

This was proved by the fact that he appointed his ambassador to South Africa only this year – three year after he took over. The Trump administration also opposed the appointment of Nigeria’s Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as director-general of the World Trade Organisation and went for South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee.

According to Carson, if Biden was elected, he would put Africa on top of his agenda and was likely to back Okonjo-Iweala, whom President Cyril Ramaphosa recently praise for her great leadership and academic credentials in the economic sector.

There might not be much change of policy towards China under Biden, but his administration would prefer a more multilateral approach on international affairs. He would support climate change, including returning America to the Paris climate change pact and other platforms.

All US political and economic analysts spoken to by Saturday Citizen were of one voice – that the acrimony that characterised Trump’s administration’s domestic and foreign policies in the last four years would end under Biden. If elected, Biden would be the first president to have a female vice-president in Kamala Harris, an African-American.

He opposed the apartheid rule in South Africa and stood on various platform in the past supporting the oppressed black majority in SA.

Eric Naki is The Citizen’s political editor and our man currently covering the 2020 US presidential election as part of a seminar organised by the East-West Centre, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, US. He is the only South African in a cohort of 12 foreign journalists attending the seminar virtually.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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