(Washington) Former President Barack Obama on Thursday launched a formal attack on Donald Trump, condemning the sending of federal agents against “peaceful protesters” and attempts to restrict the right to vote Americans.
Posted on 30 July 2020 at 14 h 49 Updated at 14 h 43
France Media Agency
Without ever naming his successor by name, the first black president of the United States delivered an indictment against his action during the funeral in Atlanta of one of the most respected figures in the fight for civil rights, John Lewis.
Despite the progress made over the years 1960, marked by the repression of activists like John Lewis, “we can still see our federal government sending agents use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators, ”he lamented.
Donald Trump, who hopes to win a second term by posing as the guarantor of “law and order”, dispatched to Portland, in the northwest of the United States, a hundred agents who , dressed in paramilitary outfits, arrested dozens of anti-racist demonstrators accused of being “rioters”.
“While we are sitting here, those in power are doing everything possible to discourage people from going to vote”, also lamented Barack Obama, citing “the closing of polling stations”, “restrictive laws Which complicate the registration of “minorities and students” and “the weakening of postal services” which channel votes by mail.
“Few elections have been as important as this one on many levels,” said the former Democratic President who has openly campaigned for a few weeks for his former number 2 in the White House, Joe Biden.
A few hours earlier, President Trump had fondled in a provocative tweet the idea of a postponement of the poll, even if this decision is not his responsibility.
“Most powerful tool”
The Republican billionaire, in difficulty in the polls, has been assuring for weeks that the extension of postal voting, desired by several states to limit the risks of the spread of the new coronavirus, risks causing fraud and distorting the result of the ballot.
In this context, shouldn't we “postpone the election until people can vote normally, in safety? ? ? He wrote.
Several states have allowed this voting system for years and no serious study has yet reported major problems.
“Votes by mail will be crucial in this ballot”, for his part estimated Barack Obama, in the Ebenezer Baptist church where Martin Luther King preached from 1960 until his assassination in 1968.
“Like John” Lewis, who was one of the pastor's fellow travelers, “we will have to fight even harder to defend the most powerful tool we have: the right to vote”, he said again, to applause.
Before him, two other former presidents paid tribute to this tireless activist and democratic parliamentarian, who died on 16 July of following cancer at the age of 80 years.
“He believed in humanity and he believed in America,” said Republican George W. Bush. “He fought well” and gave us “his instructions for the future: keep moving,” added Democrat Bill Clinton.
Former President Jimmy Carter, unable to make the trip at 80, sent his remarks by mail.
Donald Trump, whose inauguration ceremony John Lewis boycotted, had let him know that he would not even greet his coffin, exhibited Monday and Tuesday in Washington.
