Former US President, Barack Obama has said senior US Republicans are undermining democracy by going along with President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
In an interview, Mr Obama said President-elect Joe Biden had “clearly won” this year’s race for the White House.
The result was called by US media last weekend, but some counting continues. Claiming ballot tampering, Mr Trump has launched a series of lawsuits.
The former President said the allegations made by the Mr Trump were motivated by the fact that “the president doesn’t like to lose”.
“I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials, who clearly know better, are going along with this,” he added. “It’s one more step in delegitimising not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally, and that’s a dangerous path.”
Mr Obama was speaking ahead of the release of his new memoir, ‘A Promised Land’, which follows his rise to the US Senate and first term as president. The memoir is due for release on 17 November, it is the first of two books covering his time in the White House.
In excerpts of the memoir, Mr Obama further reflects on the state of democracy in America.
He writes, “Our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of crisis… But I also know that no single election will settle the matter.
“Our divisions run deep; our challenges are daunting.”
“I have an abiding trust in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, in their character and capacity to do what is right,” he added.
Mr Obama also claims President Trump ascended to power by stoking fears about a Black man leading the country.
“It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted.
“Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president.
“For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety.”
The theory that Mr Obama was an “illegitimate president” was popularised by Donald Trump in 2011 when he famously asked to see President Obama’s birth certificate and the president continued to peddle the theory on Twitter in the following years.
Meanwhile, the two top congressional Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer have called on Republicans to “accept reality” with Joe Biden’s victory.
A small number of Republicans on Capitol Hill have congratulated Mr Biden or backed calls for him to be given daily intelligence briefings but most in the party are standing by President Trump in refusing to acknowledge Mr Biden’s victory.
A group of senior US officials responsible for the integrity of the election also reported they had found no indication that votes were deleted or lost, or that last week’s poll was in any way compromised.
“We can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too,” the group said in a statement.
