4, November 2020
US: Biden inches closer to victory, Trump challenges counts 0
Tension spiralled in the still undecided US election Wednesday after President Donald Trump made unprecedented claims of fraud and demanded a recount in Wisconsin, where Democrat Joe Biden notched up another win to inch closer to overall victory.
While there was no official winner more than 12 hours after the last polls closed on Tuesday, the fate of the most divisive contest in decades was coming down to just a handful of states where the Republican incumbent and his challenger fought over razor-thin margins.
In the latest blow to Trump, Biden, 77, was declared the winner of Wisconsin, with an unsurmountable lead of 20,000 after 98 percent of ballots had been counted.
This mirrored Biden’s slow but steady march across the remaining toss-up states in the vast country, where counting was complicated by the Covid-19 pandemic and record numbers of early and mailed-in votes.
Biden led in Michigan by nearly 45,000 votes with 94 percent counted and has already been declared winner of another tight race in Arizona. Results were still being tabulated in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — all of them close contests.
The apparent shift in fortunes toward the Democrat prompted Trump, 74, to launch a tirade claiming mass fraud that he claimed on Twitter had made his victories “magically disappear.”
Trump’s campaign announced a lawsuit to try and suspend the vote count in Michigan, where it said its team was denied proper access to observe vote counting.
The campaign said it was also suing to halt the counting of votes in Pennsylvania — after the president called overnight for Supreme Court intervention to exclude the processing of mail-in ballots after the close of polls.
And it demanded a recount in Wisconsin, citing “irregularities.”
– Biden’s confidence –
The Biden camp expressed confidence, with campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon calling victory by the former vice president a “foregone conclusion.”
Biden himself was expected shortly to make a statement on the knife-edge race.
But Trump has made clear he will not accept defeat before he has exhausted every possible challenge.
During the night after polls closed Tuesday, he went on live television from the White House to claim “we did win this election” and to allege there had been “fraud on the American public.”
He later repeated his vague accusations of vote rigging on Twitter, despite a lack of any substantiated reports of meaningful irregularities during voting or counting.
“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled,” Trump tweeted. “Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.”
– ‘We have to be patient’ –
The tightest and messiest count could potentially unfold in Pennsylvania — the biggest prize still outstanding.
Here, Trump had a roughly 500,000 vote lead with an estimated 78 percent of the vote counted but votes were awaited from heavily Democratic parts of the state, promising to level things up.
“We have to be patient,” Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf said. “We may not know the results today.
“There are millions of mail-in ballots,” he said. “They’re going to be counted accurately and they will be counted fully.”
The Democratic governor shrugged off criticism from the White House over the slow vote count and said “our democracy is being tested in this election.”
“Pennsylvania will have a fair election,” he said. “And that election will be free of outside influences.”
The tight White House race and recriminations evoked memories of the 2000 election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
That race, which hinged on a handful of votes in Florida, eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, which halted a recount while Bush was ahead.
The US Elections Project estimated total turnout at a record 160 million voters including more than 101.1 million early voters, 65.2 million of whom voted by mail.
Source: AFP
4, November 2020
New clashes in Ivory Coast, US and African Union call for dialogue 0
Two Ivory Coast government supporters were killed and a minister’s convoy hit by gunfire, officials said on Wednesday, as tensions build over President Alassane Ouattara’s contested reelection.
Ivory Coast is caught in a standoff after Ouattara was declared victor on Tuesday, but rivals boycotted the vote and declared they would form a rival “transitional” government.
Security forces have blockaded access to homes of Ouattara’s chief rivals, Henri Konan Bedie and Pascal Affi N’Guessan, after officials accused the opposition of plotting an “act of sedition” against the government.
The United States on Wednesday joined the UN in calling for dialogue in the West African state where more than 40 people have been killed in clashes over Ouattara’s third term since he announced he would run again in August.
Two government supporters were killed in a clash near equipment minister Amede Koffi Kouakou’s home in the central town of Toumodi, a ruling party official said.
“Two young people from the minister’s entourage who wanted to help the minister’s brother were shot dead” Tuesday night, Ouattara’s RHDP party spokesman Mamadou Toure said.
Toumodi was one of the areas hit by violence over the weekend election — four people were killed at the weekend when houses were set ablaze during clashes there.
Toure also said the convoy of communication minister and government spokesman Sidi Tiemoko Toure had come under fire in the centre of the country, but there were no casualties.
Blocked roads
The crisis has stoked fears Ivory Coast could slide into the kind of violence that killed 3,000 people a decade ago when then president Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat by Ouattara.
Police fired tear gas on Tuesday to clear small groups of protesters near Bedie’s residence in Abidjan’s Cocody district, where security forces have blocked access roads around his home.
Security forces were also surrounding the homes of N’Guessan and former minister Abdallah Mabri Toikeusse, an AFP reporter said.
“We cannot enter or leave my home,” said Assoa Adou, secretary general of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), close to former Gbagbo, from his home.
“They don’t care if we have food or medicine,” he told AFP.
Djedri N’Goran, a senior member of Bedie’s party, said five members of Bedie’s family have been arrested.
Opponents say Ouattara’s third term breaches the country’s two-term presidential limit, but the Ivorian leader contends that a 2016 reform allowed him to run again by resetting term limits back to zero.
International concern
The crisis is another test for a region where Guinea is caught up in its own post-election dispute, Nigeria is emerging from widespread unrest and Mali has a transition government following a coup.
The United Nations, African Union and African bloc ECOWAS on Tuesday called on Ivory Coast’s opposition to “respect constitutional order” and seek dialogue, while urging all sides to show “restraint to preserve human lives”.
On Tuesday, the US called on Ivorian leaders to respect the democratic process and rule of law.
“Grievances related to the presidential election must be resolved in a peaceful and transparent manner within the framework of the law,” a statement from the US embassy said.
Western and African governments are pressing the opposition to abandon its idea of a transitional government and for Ouattara to “appease rather than oppress”, a diplomatic source said.
In power for 10 years, Ouattara said earlier this year that after his second term he planned to make way for a new generation.
But the sudden death of his chosen successor in July prompted him to seek a third term.
The anger sparked by his decision has revived memories of past Ivorian feuds with roots even before a 2002 civil war split the country in two, the north held by rebels and the south by forces of Gbagbo.
Ouattara won a long-postponed election in 2010 but Gbagbo refused to accept defeat. French forces eventually intervened to help Ouattara loyalists oust the former president.
(AFP)