South Africa’s opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema on Thursday said US President Donald Trump “must accept defeat with dignity and should not try to tarnish the process” in his bid for re-election to the country’s highest office.
Malema said this when he commented on the current Presidential elections stand-off in the USA between Trump and his Democratic Party opponent Joe Biden whose outcome has yet to be decided.
“If they are robbing each other (of votes) it is good. They are tasting what we have been tasting here in Africa. But Trump, as a cry-baby, must accept defeat. The same with Biden, if he is defeated, he must accept the outcome,” Malema said.
According to results released so far, Trump has won 213 electoral college votes following Wednesday’s elections, against Biden’s 253 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to win the presidency.
Realising that he was lagging behind, Trump insisted that he was poised to win the poll unless the Democratic Party rigged the process to deprive him of victory, and that he was ready to take his complaints to the US Supreme Court for redress.
This explanation, however, did not convince Malema, the most vocal opposition leader in South Africa whose party has the third most members of parliament.
America, as a first-world country, was expected to lead the way in terms of holding credible elections, Malema said.
He added that if the allegations of electoral fraud and vote-rigging in the US elections were true, then global democracy was in danger.
“They are first-world candidates. They cannot be speaking about the rigging of elections because they are supposed to have the most sophisticated electoral system,” Malema said.
“And if we, Third World people, are still complaining about rigging and the first world is also complaining of the same, then democracy is in danger.”
Final US presidential results are expected to be announced on Thursday or Friday as Biden maintains lead over his opponent who has just served one term of office since coming to power in 2016.
NM/jn/APA