By Dr Parkie Mbozi
THE GENERAL elections in the United states of America have produced a new leader, Joe Biden, who trumped one-term president Donald Trump after one of the most tightly contested presidential elections in America history.
To call the Biden-Trump contest tightly contested is an under-statement, especially in terms of what the candidates had to go through before the winner was announced, five days after election day on November 3. The contest was nail-biting, what more to the Trump camp that had to watch their leads in two key states of Georgia and Pennsylvania shrink, disappear then flip in Biden’s favour. Pennsylvania gave Biden the win, way ahead of final count.
Never mind the narrative of electoral fraud that the Trump campaign is peddling but not proved so far, the results show that the American people have spoken affirmatively. First, Biden garnered the highest popular vote for any Presidential candidate in US history, 76+ million, about 4.5 million more than Trump’s. The figure will go up since counting is still ongoing in some states. Second, Biden was declared winner on November 7 with 279 of the electoral college vote, compared to Trump’s 214, yet the counting was on-going and he was comfortably leading in two states of Georgia and Arizona by press time for this article..
So, whereas Team Trump is disputing the results and denying Team Biden a smooth transition, most of America and the world is Ok with the results anyway and ready to move on. The latest Time magazine features Biden and Veep-elect Kamala Harris holding hands high with a cover title which sums up the mood, “A Time to Heal America.”
Biden has received congratulatory messages from many of the US allies. This includes Israel, where Trump attained the status of a cult hero for reasons I discuss later, albeit only 12 hours later. The United Kingdom, US’s closest ally, was the first, followed by the EU and individual member states. Russia and China are the only two ‘superpower’ nations that have remained mute, ostensibly not sure who is a better ‘devil’ between Trump and Biden.
Biden has also received goodwill messages from senior Republicans, Trump’s own party. Former President George W Bush said, “Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country.” Bush weighed in the electoral dispute, “while President Donald Trump has the right to pursue legal challenges and recounts, the 2020 race was “fundamentally fair” and “its outcome is clear.”
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney on Sunday called for the country to “get behind” President-elect Joe Biden and said he has seen no evidence of widespread voter fraud.” Biden also got endorsements from other senior Republicans before the elections.
Biden is not a new face to American and world politics. Apart from being remembered as Barack Obama’s loyal vice President, Biden has been in politics as senator for close to half a decade. Lest I forget, we thank Biden for giving America and the world Harris who has scored a three-some of firsts: first female US Veep; first female African American Veep; and, first Asian American woman in that position, with the potential to be the first female American President. By the way, we are also reliably informed that Harris spent part of early childhood in our neighborhood of Lusaka, not sure if it was in Madras. So we are part of her story.
Biden’s election is more than just a mere change of hands of the leadership of the ‘free world’ and a return of the Democrats to the White House. Put simply, Biden is the antithesis of Trump. To many across the world, it is a return of America to normalcy and orderliness – both domestically in the USA and globally. We will see why in a while. More significantly, I argue, it is a lesson for us here in Zambia that with people power, it is possible to return our country to normalcy, from the trajectory of ‘panga’ and ‘pamaka’ politics we have been subjected since 2011. We can live normally again as we did before; no need to be training bouncers to survive our political landscape or living under hooligan and lumpen capture.
NO doubt Trump has been the most polarizing American leader in living memory, both globally and domestically and there are good reasons why the global community watched the 2020 election keenly. As the saying goes, “when American sneezes, the whole world catches the cold.” Being the richest and most powerful country in the world means who they have as their leader affects us all one way or another. In the first place America owns the single most powerful global currency – the dollar. Events in the USA affects that global markets and the strength of the dollar, which in turn affects the cost of our imports or value of our exports.
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin summed it, “Our world needs American leadership”. The following are key missteps that isolated the US from the world during the Trump Presidency.
Policy towards African states vis Racism: On January 11, 2018, during an Oval Office talk with several US senators about protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries in a new immigration package, Trump said, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He later denied having said this. But we had all heard it anyway. This statement defines Trump’s attitude towards black people and the African continent in general. Is it any wonder that he never prioritized Africa at any time during his four-year tenure? The only high profile African visit by his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Sudan was for the sole purpose of arm-twisting the country to join the list of Arab counties that have established diplomatic ties with Israel, in reward for lifting of US sanctions on it.
Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, wrote in his new book that, “the president was a racist who praised South Africa’s Apartheid regime.” According to the book, Trump said no country run by Black people is any good, and that Nelson Mandela left South Africa a ‘s—hole country’.
Paris Accord: On June 1, 2017, Trump announced that the U.S. would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation. The landmark deal aims to limit global warming to “well below” 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures. It consists of 75 Parties (174 states and the European Union), who signed up to the agreement on the first date it was open for signature.
Trump argued that, “The Paris accord will undermine (the U.S.) economy,” and “puts (the U.S.) at a permanent disadvantage.” This is despite the impact of climate change being felt across the global in terms floods, drought, record-breaking heat waves, wildfires, etc, least so in the US itself where recent California fires destroyed over 1,764,234 hectares of forestry and wildlife. Other nations are stepping up targets to reduce emissions. Biden vowed to rejoin the Paris Agreement on his first day in office as President of the United States.
Iran Nuclear Deal: On May 8, 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of (JCPOA), also known as the “Iran nuclear deal”. This is another multilateral and landmark agreement signed between Iran and the P5+1 (EU plus Russia) countries in April 2015. Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. With pleasing Israel at the back of his mind, Trump took the decision to abandon the deal even as the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed that Iran has complied with the provisions of the Agreement. Biden has vowed to return the US to the agreement soon as he takes over.
Withdraw from Arms Race: In August 2019, Trump’s US formally withdrew from a key nuclear treaty with Russia, raising fears of a new arms race. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. It banned missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km (310-3,400 miles). Russia called the move “a ploy to exit a pact that the US wanted to leave anyway in order to develop new missiles.” This raises the prospect of undeterred arms development and making the world a more dangerous place.
Recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel: On December 6, 2017, Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and in May 2018 the US became the first country to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was rejected by many world leaders and the UN Security Council. Previous US Presidents, as well as nearly every other country, refrained from opening embassies in Jerusalem, arguing that the city’s final status should first be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Trump gave Israel whatever it bargained for and helped it to win recognition of three Arab states but took away US funding to the Palestinians.
Withdrawal from WHO: On July 6 Trump formally started the withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), making good on threats to deprive the UN body of its top funding source over what he called its biased response to the coronavirus. The international community voiced outrage at Trump’s decision to leave WHO, which leads the global fight on maladies from polio to measles to mental health, and now COVID-19, at a time when cases were still rising around the world.
Trump’s US also suspended the US$400 million in annual US contributions to the word body. Fortunately, the withdrawal of funding from a founding member is effective in one year – July 6, 2021, in this case. During campaigns Biden said that, “Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as President, I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.”
Travel ban: The travel ban of muslim countries was one of Trump’s first policy steps upon taking office. The countries included Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. More than 700 travelers were detained, and up to 60,000 visas were “provisionally revoked”. Biden has promised to lift the ban.
To conclude, Trump was initially well received as a non-conventional politician (challenging the world order), doing things differently, etc but he stretched his luck too far: insulting fellow world leaders, bullying his ways through, etc. He reminds us of one party in some universe which once told an entire ethnic group that they should marry many wives if they wanted to produce a Republican President (sic), only to cry foul when the people they insulted denied them the vote. How egotistic!
Reminds us of Kenneth Kaunda famous warning, “Don’t take God’s people for granted.”
The author is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Economic and Social Research, University of Zambia. He is reachable on pmbozi5ATyahooDOTcom.
Same route for ECL for 2021. Unless he says inflation, GDP, Reserves, exchange rate, employment levels are positive, but looking at the current trends, the man has no chance, this is not a partisan issue anymore ,it is a common sense issue, if things are not happening , what do you do?
Let’s hope ECL is learning how to convede, even better how not to go against the law by insisting to stand even when he’s clearly ineligible. Trump has timidly conceded defeat.
You’re wrong, it’s the Americans that are learning from Zambia. We started it in 2015 by electing a useless President before they did theirs. Ours signed a useless Constitution in January 2016 and has failed to amend it. Now John Sangwa and a tandem of crooks will stop him from a 3rd term
They have showed us to avoid useless arrogant crooked business men who have never held public office. Zambians will never vote hh
What type of democracy is ours where opposition are not allowed to assemble and public media run by tax payers money is the preserve of the ruling PF only. Very strange democracy, this one
Correctly observed and Objective but for group think mentality typical of UPND sycophants and zealots, cannot see it that way…
Ba kaizar if he has never held public office then why do you accuse him of privatising PUBLIC institutions? By the way do you know that he is a headman and traditional leadership is also about serving the public. and do you know that some headmen run areas larger than some wards and costituencies held by some councillors and MPs respectively.
The writer is fake, there is still no winner in America as the matter is in court. Get your facts right before you lead yourself astray. Dont watch fake news. Who told you Biden won??
Mbozi get paid to write bullsh!t .
There is nothing American in Zambia. Imagine that truck with “loser” driving in Lusaka. Imagine what will happen to driver…
Just this coming Friday they are arresting HH for insulting
somebody and give him treason
Journalists are useless. He is feeding us with meaningless clichés like one of the most tightly contested presidential elections in America history. It wasn’t. Trump lost by Six million votes double the number he lost in 2016 and in electoral college votes 306 to 232. How can that be tight?
To call the Biden-Trump contest tightly contested is actually an over-statement. Countries like Zambia learn nothing from these elections with Trump just reminding us of Mugabe who lost but refused to leave. Malawi has more pertinent lessons for all of us in Africa
The local political tribalist party functionaries always want to twist things to align them with their non-starter- directionless party wishes.
@Monsieur Olivier The problem is I have never heard UPND complain about media ownership and styupid Presidential defamation laws. This only suggests they envy this ruling party behavior and when they take over they will continue with suppressing freedom of speech like PF does.
CNN compared Trump to Mugabe and now senior Republicans are concerned that he’s embarrassing the party. In Zambia, it’s a trend originating from 2001 when Mazoka refused to concede. Sata equally disputed 2 elections before behaving when he won in 2011. Kainde is the biggest refuser having lost a record shattering 5 elections, most recently 2016 when he won 3.5 out of 10 provinces and refused to concede. 2021 will be very violent when kainde refuses once more.
Biden did not win this election, there was massive voter fraud as confessed by himself before elections that they put up the most extensive inclusive voter fraud organization ever in the history of America, Trump was voted for by 80 million Americans. As for you Doctor I understand your source of information is one sided if you researched what Trump has done for his country you wouldn’t say he pushed his luck too far. All in all Trump has been the best president a president for the people. Now a Pandora’s box has been opened for massive voter fraud in many countries as shown demonstrated in the USA.
The race is far from a “tight contest.” Joe is at 79M in popular vote to Don, 73M. 51% to 47%. Joe got more electoral college votes at 306 to, Don, 232.
Has the fat lady sung?
Zambian have learned from the American case to not vote in arrogant crooked businessmen
As for Zambia, picking Presidents from streets has been our mistake. We voted for Chiluba a bus conductor and the chap wanted third term. We again picked this chap from Chawama and he also wants third Term.
Let us have sanity NOW.
Kaizar Zulu
November 24, 2020 At 1:56 pm
“..Zambian have learned from the American case to not vote in arrogant crooked businessmen……”
Tell us what your seasoned politician and public servant lungu has done for Zambia ?????
Even my garden boy can build those infrastructure using borrowed money , lungu has even failed to payback.
Lungu has takes Zambia back years…..
The author has been watching too much CNN.
Come 2021, PF will be crooked history.