The unfolding political drama playing out in the United States since Wednesday as Americans turn their backs on the incumbent Donald Trump who is disputing the election of his rival Joe Biden is no longer the exclusive monopoly of strongmen leaders in Africa alone, pundits in South Africa say.
With incumbent US President Donald Trump insisting his country’s presidential poll was rigged in favour of his Democratic rival Joe Biden, this claim could have come from any other African country except for one difference: the complainant is the incumbent — and not the opposition candidate.
What a twist of events as the drama continued to play out on Saturday, four days after Americans went to the poll.
Whatever the outcome of the polling after the results are known, the US presidential poll landscape would never be the same.
Trump’s Democratic Party opponent Biden leads in the Electoral College count with 253 votes to his 213 votes.
But will the incumbent survive the so-called “rigged” election exercise, which critics have dismissed as a misguided untruth from the controversial US leader?
Said Editor Adriaan Basson: “Only a miracle can save Trump from losing to Biden” at the current rate of the returns of the balloting.
However, “whether he wins or loses re-election, Trump’s first four years in office will go down in history as the most disgraceful period for one of the most powerful nations on earth,” Basson said.
Fellow South African journalist John Matisonn said the current scenario in US politics was bound to leave behind such negative effects which would be felt for a long time to come.
“This will last well after the counting process is done with,” Matisonn, who is also a TV broadcaster, said.
Weighing in on the issue, opposition Economic Freedom Front (EFF) leader Julius Malema said the stand-off in the US presidential poll should not concern Africans because Americans and its politicians are narcissists.
Malema said: “The Democratic and Republican Parties are all one. Their ideology is one. Their mission is the same: put America first, and conquer the world.
“If they are complaining about rigging, let them rob each other’s votes. Either way, the Americans of both parties are the same. They only care about themselves. Why should we care about them?”
NM/as/APA