By Spy Uganda Corespondent
US president Donald Trump has confirmed he will leave the White House if Joe Biden is formally confirmed as the next US president by the electoral college.
The president had previously refused to accept defeat in the 3 November vote, and told reporters on Thursday it would be “hard” to concede and still insists on claims of voter fraud.
The electors will meet in their respective states on December 8 to elect the president and on the basis of the current projected count pending complete certification of results by all states and finally formalize the vote, with Democrat Joe Biden due to be sworn in as president on 20 January.
Biden will win 306 of the 528 total votes, to Trump’s 232, Trump had won the 2016 election with the same count and had bragged of it as a landslide, at the loser’s end now, Trump is crying foul, with declining purchase even among Republicans.
The tally is far more than the 270 needed to win, and Mr Biden also leads the popular vote by more than six million.
The president and his supporters have lodged a number of legal challenges over the election, but most have been dismissed.
Earlier this week, Mr Trump finally agreed to allow the formal transition to President-elect Biden’s team to begin, following several weeks of uncertainty.
The decision means Mr Biden is able to receive top security briefings and access key government officials and millions of dollars in funds as he prepares to take over on 20 January 2021
In one of the interviews on Thursday this week, Trump was asked on whether he would agree to leave the White House if he lost the electoral college vote and he confirmed he would definitely not decline to leave white house.
“Certainly I will, certainly I will and you know that, if they do [elect Joe Biden], they made a mistake, It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud”, Trump said.
However Trump further alleged that he has stood by without offering proof of the fraud and did not confirm whether he would attend Mr Biden’s inauguration.
The normally routine process of transitioning from one president to another and confirming the result has been derailed by President Trump’s refusal to concede.
Under the US electoral system, voters do not directly choose the next president. Instead, they vote for 538 officials, who are allocated to American states based on their population size.
The electors almost always vote for the candidate that won the most votes in their states, and although it is possible for some to disregard the voters’ pick no result has ever been changed this way.
The president-elect celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving on Thursday, as coronavirus cases in the US continue to rise but cautioned the people to observe the guidelines put in place to deal with the virus.
“This year, our turkey will be smaller and the clatter of cooking a little quieter, Like millions of Americans, we are temporarily letting go of the traditions we can’t do safely.” Mr Biden and his wife Jill said in one of the interviews with CNN.
“It is not a small sacrifice. These moments with our loved ones, time that’s lost can’t be returned. Yet, we know it’s the price of protecting each other and one we don’t pay alone.”
Mr Biden has already announced his choice of top officials when he takes over from Donald Trump in January 2021 and said that co-operation from the White House over the transition had been sincere.
