Prominent members of the Republican Party in the United States Congress on Sunday urged President Donald Trump to “fight hard” and not to concede defeat in the country’s presidential election held last Tuesday.

Joe Biden of the Democratic Party was on Saturday declared the US President-elect after he recorded 279 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 214.

The Republican Senator from South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham said on Fox News said the president’s claim of fraud in the election must be investigated.

He said: “We will work with Biden if he wins, but Trump has not lost.

“Do not concede, Mr. President. Fight hard.”

Graham also alleged “shenanigans” related to mailed ballots, the method a large number of Americans preferred in Tuesday’s election due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s the wild-wild west when it comes to mail-in balloting,” said Graham, a former Trump critic turned unstinting supporter.

Other top Republicans were more guarded in their comments, but nonetheless refused to acknowledge Biden had won, saying legal challenges must go forward and vote counting must continue.

“What we need in the presidential race is to make sure every legal vote is counted, every recount is completed, and every legal challenge should be heard,” Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House of Representatives, stated.

MEXICAN President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Saturday that it was too soon to congratulate Joe Biden and he would wait for “all legal issues” in the US presidential election to be resolved.

“We don’t want to be imprudent. We don’t want to act lightly and we want to respect people’s self-determination and rights,” Lopez Obrador told reporters.

“We have a very good relationship with the two candidates,” he added.

“President Trump has been very respectful with us and we have reached very good agreements, and we thank him because he has not interfered and has respected us,” said the left-wing populist.

And “the same” go for Biden, Lopez Obrador added.

Trump has launched a slew of legal challenges and refused to concede after the major US television networks announced Biden’s win.

The Republican sparked anger during his 2016 election campaign when he branded Mexican migrants “rapists” and drug dealers and vowed to build a wall across the southern US border.

But Lopez Obrador has managed to maintain cordial relations with Trump and even visited him in July on his first foreign trip since taking office.

(Credit: AFP)

UNITED States of America’s President-elect, Joe Biden, has assured black voters of his support.

He said this in his victory speech on Sunday.

Biden, who appreciated the voters for backing him in major cities, disclosed that votes of black Americans helped him emerged victorious in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“And especially for those moments when this campaign was at its lowest — the African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I’ll have yours,” he said.

When assuring his support for African-Americans, he repeatedly slammed his fist on the podium and the crowd erupted in cheers.

According to Africa Business Insider, black voters, particularly in key cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, were a critical factor in Biden’s success.

Exit polls revealed that 87 per cent of Black voters backed Biden compared to just 12 per cent for President Donald Trump, though they also indicated that Trump had improved his standing among Black voters compared to 2016.

Biden of the Democratic Party won Tuesday’s presidential election to become the 46th elected President of the United States.

Biden, 77, defeated the Republican incumbent, Donald Trump, by securing 273 electoral college votes against Trump’s 214, after four grueling days of vote count that kept Americans on edge.

The Electoral College refers to the group of presidential electors required by the constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and Vice President.

Article II section 1, clause 2 provides that each state shall appoint electors selected in a manner determined by its legislature.

There are currently 538 electors in the Electoral College, and an absolute majority of electoral votes—270 or more—is required for the college to elect the president and vice president.

If no candidate achieves an absolute majority, a contingent election is held whereby the U.S. Congress is required to elect the president and vice president.

The former Vice President, who turns 78 on Nov. 20, will become the oldest president in U.S. history, after Ronald Reagan, the 40th president, who left office in 1989 at 77.

History has also been made in Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, who is now the first female vice president in America’s history.

The senator from California has also emerged as the first woman of colour to be elected to the White House.

By this result, Trump has become the first one-term U.S. president since the 1990s.

Trump has, however, rejected the results of the pool, claiming there were manipulations during the electoral process.

He had asked for the counting of the votes to stop in certain states having realised the unassailable lead of his challenger, Joe Biden.

North Korea is yet to react to Joe Biden’s victory as United States President, report say.

During his election campaign rallies, Biden called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a “dictator” and a “thug,” and criticized his rival President Donald Trump for befriending Kim.

But the ex-Vice President indicated he was also willing to meet with Kim, saying his condition would be that Pyongyang works to make the Korean Peninsula “a nuclear-free zone.”

North Korea also has criticized Biden, who served two terms as vice president to President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, calling him a “low IQ individual” who is “seized by ambition for power.”

The exchange of harsh rhetoric between Kim and Biden contrasts with the personal relationship that the North Korean leader developed with Trump. Trump and Kim have met three times and exchanged letters since 2018 to try to reach a deal on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for sanctions relief. The meetings ended without substantial results.

While Kim has been actively trying to strengthen his relationship with leaders of allies including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin by sending letters and congratulatory messages this year, the regime had not yet reacted to Biden’s victory as of press time.

When Trump was elected in 2016, North Korean media didn’t mention the winner of the election. Instead, its state media Rodong Sinmun reported that the Obama administration has put a greater burden on the new administration.

“It has burdened the new administration with the difficulty of facing the Juche (self-reliant) nuclear state,” it said, referring to the North, in an editorial published on Nov. 10, 2016, just after Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president of the US.

“If there is anything the Obama administration has done … it has put the security of the US mainland in the greatest danger,” the editorial said.

The name of Trump was first mentioned by North Korea 10 days after he was announced to be the winner to criticize then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye for sending a congratulatory message to Trump.

When Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, Pyongyang showed a relatively quick reaction, saying that Obama defeated Republican candidate John McCain.

North Korea appeared to have been relieved by a Democratic candidate taking the office due to the hawkish approach taken by previous Republican administrations.

But any expectations fizzled as the Obama administration imposed a policy of “strategic patience” while pursuing economic pressure on the regime following Pyongyang’s second nuclear weapons test in May 2009.

“Obama, who seeks a second term, has been making reckless remarks on our republic’s self-defense nuclear deterrence that we have to pay the price for it and that we should make a decision about it,” Rodong Sinmun said on Nov. 4, 2012, just prior to the presidential election.

When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, North Korea’s state-controlled Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported the election result four days after he was declared to be the next US leader. “The Supreme Court confirmed Republican candidate Bush, the governor of Texas, was the winner without clarification of many problematic votes in Florida.”

The Bush administration’s hard-line stance on Pyongyang, branding the regime as part of “an axis of evil” along with Iran and Iraq, led the North to skip its direct reporting on Bush’s success in securing a second term in 2004.