The president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, has delivered his victory speech at his home town in Delaware, Pennsylvania on Saturday night, (Sunday 1am GMT). Biden promised to restore America’s respect around the world, protect the planet, unify the divided America and root out systematic racism in the country.
Biden has become the oldest elected American president at 77 and the winner with most votes in the presidential ticket ever, beating the record of former president Barack Obama in 2008. Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in Tuesday’s election. But Trump remains defiant to the results and has yet refused to concede as he vows to challenge the election outcome at the Supreme Court on Monday.
“America called upon us to marshal the forces of decency, the forces of fairness, to marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time: the battle to control the virus, the battle to build prosperity, the battle to secure your family’s health care,” Biden said.
“The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country, the battle to save our planet by getting climate under control, the battle to restore decency, defend democracy and give everybody in this country a fair shot”, Biden added.
As of Sunday morning, the United States has recorded more than 10 million coronavirus cases with 243, 257 deaths. The Trump administration has failed to show any sign of controlling the pandemic resulting in his defeat in the election. In his victory speech, Biden promised to announce on Monday a group of scientists and experts as transition advisers who would help him tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Without that, he said, the country could not repair the economy.
Unifying a divided America
Although Biden described himself as a proud Democrat, he promised to be a president for all Americans. He said the coalition he had built on the way to his win, included Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, moderates, conservatives, young, old, urban, suburban, rural, gay, straight, transgender, White, Latino, Asian, Native American.
“I don’t see the blue states or red states but the United States. The people of America delivered us a convincing victory. I pledge to be the president who seeks to unify our country. This is the time to heal the America.”
Biden paid his deepest thanks to the African American community who he said, “especially in those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb . . . stood up again for me.” He said he would govern as a president for all Americans and extended a hand to those who had supported Trump.
“I understand the disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of times myself,” Biden said, referring to Trump. “Now let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again. Listen to each other again. And to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They’re Americans.”
Reaction of the international community
Several heads of state and governments across the world have sent in their congratulatory messages to Mr. Biden and Harris on their election. The British Prime Minister Borris Johnson described America as the most important ally of the United Kingdom in a tweet on Saturday, shortly after Biden’s victory. France, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Qatar, Canada, Argentina etc. have all congratulated and express hope for normalizing their bilateral relations. Trump has not been seen as a friendly president by allies due to his so-called ‘America first’ policy. The world sees Biden as a president who will restore mutual cooperation, particularly following his campaign promise of returning the U.S to the Paris Climate Agreement. He’s likely to re-establish the nuclear deal with Iran which involved their European allies after Trump pulled America out of the deal saying it’s the worst deal of Obama administration. Biden was the Vice president during the agreement.
Kamala Harris historic remarks
Vice president-elect Kamala Harris has made history after being voted the first woman to occupy the position. She also became the first Black woman with Asian descent to hold such position. “While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last.”
Kamala Harris taking the stage before President elect Joe Biden’s victory speech
“I know times have been challenging, especially the last several months. The grief, sorrow and pain, the worries and the struggles,” Harris said. “But we have also witnessed your courage, your resilience and the generosity of your spirit. For four years, you marched and organized for equality and justice for our lives and for our planet. And then you voted and you delivered a clear message. You chose hope and unity, decency, science and, yes, truth.” “And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election, with the very soul of America at stake and the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America,” Harris told the crowd.
Trump shows no sign of intention to concede
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is showing no sign of conceding following his lost in the election. He’s challenging the matter at the court on Monday. His defeat came following Biden’s victory in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Saturday after four days of vote counting. The state catapulted Biden to surpass the magic numbers of 270 electorate votes, making him the 46th president of U.S.A. But Trump repeatedly called the election fraudulent and accused the Democrats of stealing the votes without giving evidence. His campaign has since then been filing lawsuits in courts in different states to seek stoppage of vote counting and recounting. Courts in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada have all rejected his requests. On Saturday, he released a statement saying ‘Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner’ and also hints that his campaign will start prosecuting the cases on Monday.
Trump Mr. Trump also asks the courts to order pass an order to for the ballots that arrived 4am election night to be counted. This came when his leads in swing states especially Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia were gradually eroding in Biden’s favour. But the founder and senior partner of Zogby Strategies, John Zogby while analysing the 2020 U.S election told foreign journalists covering the election that such practice have been existing in the U.S election.
“I taught political science for many, many years, and one of the things that’s very clear in the Constitution is that voting laws and procedures are governed by the states and that the federal courts and then the Supreme Court of the United States are only brought in when there was a violation of someone’s rights. In this case, I don’t see how anyone’s rights have been violated at all by votes that come in after the election. We’ve been doing that for years. We have tens of thousands of militaries overseas, hundreds of thousands of Americans who live overseas, people who’ve voted absentee for years, and those ballots do come in late and they are routinely counted, or at least they’re supposed to be counted.
Zogby added that: “I’ve been traveling now for over 30 years. I always vote absentee. I don’t know when my ballot comes in, but I’d be outraged if I discovered that, for some reason or another unbeknownst to me, that it was neither counted or ruled ineligible to be counted. So, can the Supreme Court ultimately be involved in this? I don’t see how. I don’t understand a legal basis.”
He said the states are the ones that govern voting procedures while federal government stays out of it unless someone’s rights were being violated. “I don’t see how the counting of ballots that come in late violates anyone’s rights. The dates are not arbitrary. How does it violate someone’s rights if the law says as long as it’s postmark election day, or as long as it comes in three or four days after the election, it’s still to be counted? I don’t know who that hurts. And so, I don’t know, not a lawyer again, but I don’t know what the basis for getting the federal government involved would be.”
As of early Sunday morning, Joe Biden has secured 290 electoral votes after winning both Pennsylvania and Nevada with a popular vote of 75,193,022 getting a percentage of 50.6%. Trump on the other hand remained at 214 electoral votes with 70,804,968 securing 47.7 percent of the total vote cast. Counting continues in swing states. The 2020 election has seen the record voter turn out in U.S history.