Politics
As Biden Wins US Election, world looks at how new White House will shift policies
As Joe Biden becomes victorious in the US presidential election, the focus among America’s friends and rivals around the world turned to predicting what a Democratic administration would mean for their engagement with the United States. On Saturday, foreign leaders still largely refrained from commenting on the contest or congratulating Biden in the absence of a final vote tally
Here are the latest developments:
- Newspapers across the globe declared an almost-certain Biden victory, declining to wait for most major U.S. media outlets to call it.
- Most world leaders say they will work with whoever wins the White House, though most stopped short of offering congratulations before the count is settled.
- President Trump continued to make unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud, retweeting misleading claims about the integrity of the vote count.
- Trump’s far-right allies, notably Brexit party leader Nigel Farage, encouraged him to keep up the fight and railed against mail-in ballots.
- The prime minister of Fiji was among the first leaders to publicly congratulate Biden, saying he hoped for greater U.S. action on climate change.
With Joe Biden in the driver’s seat to win the presidency, countries around the world looked ahead to what a Democratic administration would mean for them. Many hope the period of American isolationism and country-first populism under President Trump will give way to an era of renewed U.S. global leadership and embrace of multilateralism to tackle common challenges.
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, when asked Saturday about the relationship with a future Biden administration, said the Australia-U. S. alliance is “bigger than any one individual.” Morrison, a conservative, said he would wait for the vote count to be over and then get on with working with Washington. Morrison and Trump have long been close. In 201
Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji, was among the first to congratulate Biden outright, saying in a tweet that they must work together to confront a warming planet and rebuild the global economy.
“Now, more than ever, we need the USA at the helm of these multilateral efforts (and back in the #ParisAgreement — ASAP!),” he wrote.
As the Democratic candidate extended his vote lead in key battleground states, newspapers around the world began analyzing the policy implications under a Biden administration. Others continued to focus on the battered image of American democracy — sometimes with open glee
“Who’s the Banana Republic now?” Publimetro, a Colombian daily newspaper, asked on its front page.
The Times of India, which effectively declared Biden the winner with the headline ” Bye Don, Its Biden Finally,” said that H1-B work visas — allowing nonimmigrants to work in the United States — are unlikely to return in their previous scale or numbers, even if the Biden administration has a more favorable immigration policy. But it noted that the Democrats could be stronger on human rights violations in India. The newspaper also described celebrations in Sen. Kamala D. Harris’ ancestral village in southern India — the birthplace of her maternal grandfather — where residents were feeling festive ahead of the traditional Diwali celebrations.
In China, relations with the United States have plummeted to their lowest ebb in 40 years amid bitter disputes over trade, technology, human rights and the coronavirus pandemic. But hopes have been stirred that, despite fundamental differences, a Biden win might act as a circuit-breaker and offer a window for cooperation in certain areas.
From Beijing’s perspective, “a Biden presidency is more likely to put a floor under the current free-fall in relations, judging by his recent remarks on China and those of his foreign policy advisers,” wrote Wang Xiangwei, a columnist and editorial adviser at the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. Chinese officials, he said, are hoping for at least a short-term respite to the vitriol that has dominated Sino-U. S. relations under Trump.
Still, an-op-ed in the nationalistic Global Times tabloid noted deep partisan divisions in the United States that it said would not be easily eased.
“The U.S. will remain united from outside but divided from within, no matter who is president,” wrote Zhang Jiadong, a professor at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University.
Iranian officials have largely avoided commenting on the election impasse and its possible implications for U.S. policies, such as the future of economic sanctions and the fate of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama-Biden administration. Trump withdrew from the pact two years ago and has stepped up sanctions on Tehran.
“For us, the individual and the party are not important; rather, what matters is the policies to be adopted by the U.S. government,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhan said saturday. Rouhani has urged the U.S. to return to its commitments under the nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and rejected Trump’ calls to renegotiate it.
The Chairman of Tehran’s City Council, Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, on Saturday congratulated the family of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, who was killed in a U.S. military drone strike in January near Baghdad. Rafsanjani said the targeted killing helped cause “Trump’s heavy defeat,” BBC Persian reported.
Iranians, battered by an economic crisis alongside the coronavirus, have been following the election with intense scrutiny. Aftab-e Yazd, an Iranian reformist newspaper, declared on its Saturday front page: “A world without Trump.”
The global pandemic added urgency to Biden’s pledge to reverse Trump’s approach, which has left the United States estranged from the World Health Organization and facing the highest numbers of deaths and new cases at home.
After Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization — in protest of what he claim was a bias toward China — Biden this summer pledged to rejoin the U.N.’s health agency on his first day in office. Biden is a “globalist at heart,” wrote Natasha Kassam a research fellow at Sydney’s Lowy Institute political think tank, in the Guardian.
“When it comes to global public health,” she added, “America has literally left the building.”
Breaking: Speaker Obasa Debunks Allegation Of Spending N17b On Assembly Gate
The Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, on Thursday described the allegation that the House spent N17 billion on the fixing of a gate as spurious and funny.
A self-proclaimed group, Lagos State Anti-Corruption Coalition, had accused the Assembly of spending the amount to construct a gate. The group also sought investigation of the claim.
Speaking at plenary, Dr. Obasa said the allegation stemmed from the fear of some people over 2027 which is still more than two years away.
Obasa further debunked the claim that the House spent N200 million on its recently organised 22nd thanksgiving service for staff.
“It is so funny. How much is the allocation of the Assembly in the whole year that we will decide to spend N17 billion on a gate? They even claimed that we expended 200 million on thanksgiving that did not hold.
“We are aware that at a period like this when we are approaching elections in 2027, we should expect such things. I think some people are scared and I don’t know why.
“This House did not and has not embarked on any such project. We are not that reckless. We had our thanksgiving last Friday and dignitaries from various parts of the State attended it,” the Speaker said.
Addressing further claims by the group about the alleged relationship between him and the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, the Speaker denied attending the latter’s screening and confirmation by the National Assembly.
“They said that I was at the National Assembly when they were confirming the EFCC chairman. I want to believe that there are CCTV cameras at the National Assembly to identify those who attended the event. The press must have written about it too. So the group should do more to confirm if I was there.
“This is just to deny the allegations in the interest of the public and not the writers because the writers are not those we should be joining words with,” the Speaker said.
Earlier, the House, through its spokesperson, Hon. Stephen Ogundipe, had addressed the allegations noting that the Assembly bases its activities on integrity, transparency and accountability.
“It is ludicrous the claim about constituency intervention funds and constituency project funds and their handling by Speaker Mudashiru Obasa and Clerk of the House, Barr. Olalekan Onafeko as claimed by the group.
“One would have expected a self-acclaimed anti-corruption crusading group to do its groundwork before jumping across the fence with conviction that it hit a jackpot to malign an institution of repute in the name of politics.
“Simply put, the Lagos State House of Assembly does not have any such funds. The Assembly does not embark on constituency projects. Instead, once every year, the House holds stakeholders’ meetings simultaneously across the state where constituents have the opportunity to tell the lawmakers their expectations and make requests for the betterment of the state.
“These requests and expectations are compiled and sent to the executive arm of government for consideration as inputs in subsequent budgets. If this is what the group takes as constituency intervention or project funds, we are sure this explanation has given the required education, moreover, it is common knowledge that it is the responsibility of the Executive arm to execute such projects,” the earlier statement by Ogundipe read.
Eromosele Ebhomele
Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly.
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