Former US President Barack Obama back in the political arena – and he doesn’t skimp with swipes at the Republicans. On the one hand, there is a current with a “policy of meanness and division and conflict,” said the Democrat on Saturday in Richmond during an election campaign before the gubernatorial election in the US state of Virginia. “But the good news is that there is another way in which we can pull together and solve big problems.” This is a decision “which I believe will determine not only the next few years but also the next decades of human history”.
Obama said it was about determining what kind of democracy the next generation would inherit. He warned against a “return to the chaos that has caused so much damage.” The ex-president is likely to allude to the term of office of his successor Donald Trump (75), who ruled in the White House from 2017 to January this year. In Virginia, Obama’s fellow party member Terry McAuliffe (64) and Trump-backed Republican Glenn Youngkin (54) are running for governor. The election is on November 2nd. It is considered an early mood test for the nationwide congressional elections well in a year.
First mood test before mid-term elections in 2022
Obama intervened in the election campaign for the governorship in the state of Virginia with attacks on the Republican candidate. Youngkin wants to cut teaching positions and restrict access to abortions, said Obama. He also accused him of supporting the unproven election fraud allegations of ex-President Donald Trump.
“He said he wanted to investigate the voting machines that were used in the last presidential election,” Obama said of the Republican candidate. “For real? Does he support the lies and conspiracy theories we’ve been witnessing all along? And we should believe that he is committed to our democracy? ” McAuliffe called his rival “a lap dog of Trump” in his speech.
McAuliffe, who, after a first term in office from 2014 to 2018, is seeking a second mandate as governor, is in a neck-and-neck race with Youngkin in surveys. The election in Virginia is seen as an important test of sentiment for the Democrats of US President Joe Biden with a view to the mid-term elections next year. (SDA / AFP / kes))