How Six Newspapers in Africa Portrayed the Joe Biden Win

Busi­ness Day / South Africa

The edi­to­r­i­al sec­tion of a lead­ing South African news­pa­per pro­vides a per­spec­tive in reac­tion to the 2020 Amer­i­can election.

Joe Biden was pro­claimed the win­ner of the 2020 Amer­i­can pres­i­den­tial race on Sat­ur­day, Nov. 7.

Biden crossed the 270 Elec­toral Col­lege votes thresh­old need­ed to secure the pres­i­den­cy. The rest of the votes are still being count­ed. They are yet to be cer­ti­fied by each of America’s 50 states.

In elec­toral par­lance, Biden is now con­sid­ered “pres­i­dent-elect” of the Unit­ed States while he waits to offi­cial­ly assume office on Jan­u­ary 20, 2021.

When the call announc­ing Biden’s vic­to­ry came from major US news net­works, includ­ing CNN and the Asso­ci­at­ed Press (AP), it appeared there was a seis­mic shift around the world — peo­ple wept on TV, there was danc­ing in the streets in Amer­i­ca, and in far­away places such as the African continent.

While the incum­bent pres­i­dent, Don­ald Trump, lost the elec­tion and is call­ing for a recount in some places, and with law­suits that have been filed to change things, jour­nal­ists, com­men­ta­tors, and pun­dits churned out lots of writ­ings about the sto­ry of the Amer­i­can election.

The US gov­ern­ment holds an impor­tant place not just in the lives of Amer­i­cans, but an even more impor­tant place in the lives of many around the world. Even while the Trump admin­is­tra­tion shuns many of the respon­si­bil­i­ties Amer­i­ca is often called upon to play in glob­al pol­i­tics, it remains a bea­con of free­dom to many, espe­cial­ly in places where there is con­tin­ued fric­tion between gov­ern­ments and their cit­i­zens on the issues of peace, secu­ri­ty, and eco­nom­ic free­dom. Many of those places are in the African continent.

Here we are tak­ing a quick look at some of the per­spec­tives writ­ten by edi­tors and news­pa­per pub­lish­ers in six select­ed African nations in the imme­di­ate after­math of the US pres­i­den­tial race. Over­all, I looked at sto­ries from more than 20 news­pa­pers from East, West, North, and South­ern Africa for this story

While a lot of the web­sites con­tained cur­rent, up-to-date news and infor­ma­tion about the Amer­i­can elec­tion, many of them lacked an edi­to­r­i­al stand­point on the vote. But still, these pub­li­ca­tions, many of them oper­at­ing both online and in print, impressed me with their web usage, styl­is­tics, includ­ing their con­tent and the num­bers of sub­jects covered.

1. Business Day — South Africa

EDITORIAL: SA must make the most of US change

“While there is no doubt that hav­ing the US led by some­one who doesn’t talk about Africa in deroga­to­ry terms — that this is even a stan­dard to mea­sure it by is tes­ta­ment to the lows of the Trump pres­i­den­cy — is a good thing, it is too ear­ly to judge how the rela­tion­ship will be reset in the com­ing months or years. Even when the US had a half Kenyan pres­i­dent, Barack Oba­ma, Africa and SA were not exact­ly top of its agen­da, despite the continent’s eco­nom­ic potential.”

2. Nation — Kenya

Biden has huge task to reset US place in world

“The Unit­ed States need­ed a pres­i­dent who can reset the but­ton for democ­ra­cy, respect for human rights, pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment and lead­ing the war against the Covid-19 glob­al pandemic.”

3. Ghana Web — Ghana

Trump has tak­en Amer­i­ca to hell and back! Will he stop there?

“Don­ald Trump has been behav­ing like your child­hood play­ground bul­ly. He wants to appoint ref­er­ee, because the ball is his. But hav­ing appoint­ed the ref­er­ee, he’s not sat­is­fied with that. He also wants to be able to nul­li­fy the deci­sions of the ref­er­ee he has him­self appoint­ed. If he’s not allowed to do that, he takes his ball home!”

4. The Guardian Post — Cameroon

Biden makes “Amer­i­ca Great again”

The Guardian Post /Cameroon

The edi­to­r­i­al sec­tion of The Guardian Post and its reflec­tion on the Amer­i­can elec­tion 2020.

5. The Libyan Express — Libya

The US elec­tion of 2020

“These elec­tions showed the deep divi­sion in the Unit­ed States, which in many places led to extreme­ly mar­gin­al elec­tion results. The intense con­fronta­tion between the two sides and the extreme rhetoric and prac­tice is not an iso­lat­ed event and may deep­en even fur­ther, hav­ing a neg­a­tive impact on the country.” 

 6. The Point — Gambia 

Amer­i­cans have decided!

“Amer­i­ca has been a cham­pi­on when it comes to pro­mot­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and prin­ci­ples. And these include pro­mot­ing free, fair and trans­par­ent elec­tions. We all know around the globe emerg­ing, mid­dle incomes and even most devel­oped coun­tries look up to Amer­i­ca when it comes to pro­mot­ing democ­ra­cy. The whole world is watch­ing America.” 

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