Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 09 Nov 2020, 01:17 am Print
Unsplash
Johannesburg: Rubbing salt to outgoing US President Donald Trump's wounds, South Africa based Nelson Mandela Foundation has said that the organisation is relieved to see him defeated, while it congratulated President elect Joe Biden and Vice President elect Kamala Harris.
"It is with a sense of relief that we have seen President Donald Trump defeated in the US presidential election. Like many around the world, we celebrate the fact that we won’t have to watch him undermining democratic institutions and listen to him bringing the most powerful office in the world into disrepute for another four years," the Nelson Mandela Foundation said in a statement.
Statement: Congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harrishttps://t.co/i3hVGBfNxC
— NelsonMandela (@NelsonMandela) November 8, 2020
Coming down hard on the Trump administration, the organisation accused the incumbent cabinet of Afrophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism among other prejudices.
It added: "Now begins the daunting task for the US of undoing the Trump administration’s deepening of racism, sexism, xenophobia, Afrophobia and many other intersecting vectors of prejudice and hatred."
"We congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President elect Kamala Harris on what has been a successful but punishing election campaign. We look forward to seeing the White House occupied by a leadership team which understands the central importance of human dignity. We take special pleasure from the fact that Mz Harris is the first woman in US history to fill the position of Vice-President," the statement added.
Harris, who is a multiracial American, is the first: female, Black, Indian-American and Asian vice president-elect of the United States of America.
"We wish Mr Biden and Mz Harris well in what will be a difficult transition," the statement added.
The organisation urged Donald Trump to "embrace the democratic process, support the transition, and begin contributing to the healing of a deeply fractured society".
"As Nelson Mandela often used to say, a good leader knows when to step down. And how to do so appropriately. It’s not too late for Trump to embrace dignity, for himself and for others," it said.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is yet to concede.
In fact, on November 7, he took to Twitter that he had won the elections, at a time when all major US media houses declared Democrat candidate Joe Biden as the winner.
I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020
According to reports, US First Lady Melania Trump has joined other members of her husband's inner circle to ask him to accept loss and concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.
Trump, who has moved court, remains adamant.
- US techie was laid off from her high-paying job but now decides to shuck oysters at parties as an alternative profession
- Election Day: America votes today to elect Kamala Harris or Donald Trump as next President
- USA: Police arrest man over charges of using weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy power plant
- North Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles ahead of US polls
- Israel claims it eliminated high-ranking Hezbollah commander Abu Ali Rida