Calling on Americans to bring down the political temperature, United States President Joe Biden on Thursday promised a “peaceful and orderly” transfer of power to Republican Party’s Donald Trump.
Trump won the US presidential election on Wednesday, securing 295 out of the 538 electoral college votes. Democratic Party candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris’s tally was 226.
The popular votes determine the electoral college seats candidates win in every state. A candidate needs to win at least 270 electoral college votes in order to be elected as the president.
Addressing the nation from the White House, Biden said that the election result should “lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system”.
“It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent,” said the outgoing president. “And it can be trusted, win or lose.”
He added: “Something I hope we can do no matter who you voted for is see each other not as adversaries but as fellow Americans, bring down the temperature.”
Biden also said that he had congratulated Trump on a telephonic call. “I will fulfil my oath, and I will honour the Constitution,” he said. “On January 20th, we will have a peaceful transfer of power here in America.”
Biden asked his supporters not to lose hope, stating that a “defeat does not mean we are defeated”.
Trump was the president between 2017 and 2021. After Biden defeated him in the 2020 elections, the Republican leader had claimed that the polls were not fair and there was a conspiracy to stop him from winning another term.
Trump’s assertion led to his supporters storming the US Capitol building, or parliament, on January 6, 2021, to prevent Biden from being certified as the next president.
In May, Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of a felony after a court in New York found him guilty in a case pertaining to illegally influencing the 2016 presidential election.
With Wednesday’s victory, he has become the first president-elect to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, a crime defined in the United States as one that is punishable by death or imprisonment for over a year.
Trump is also only the second person to secure non-consecutive presidential terms after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.
Harris, a former senator from California, became the vice president in 2021 when Biden became the president.
She had become the candidate of the Democratic Party after Biden ended his re-election campaign in July. Biden’s decision came after several senior party leaders urged the 81-year-old to quit the presidential race, expressing concerns about his age and health. Harris was Biden’s running mate in the campaign until then.
Speaking to her reporters on Wednesday, she said that despite her defeat, the political battle would continue “in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square”.
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