WEB DESK
Despite violence and protest outside the Capitol, the US Congress has certified Joe Biden as the next President and Kamala Harris as Vice President of the country.
Vice-President Mike Pence, who as president of the Senate oversaw the certification process, confirmed to Congress that, of the 538 electoral college votes cast, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received 306 and Donald Trump and Mike Pence received 232 – mirroring the results of November’s election.
The decision came hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC. The incident left four people dead. A state of emergency has been declared for 15 days in the US Capital.
Joe Biden’s victory was confirmed in the early hours of Thursday by a joint session presided over by Vice-President Mike Pence. He termed the violence as a “dark day in the history of the United States Capital”. The objections by some Republican lawmakers to overturn the result in Arizona and Pennsylvania was rejected as well. The exercise cleared the decks for Joe Biden to be sworn in on 20 January.
In response, Trump pledged an “orderly transition” of power. However, it has been a transition of power marked by violence in which four people died after supporters of Trump stormed the US Capital on Wednesday to stop Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. The clashes followed a two month long war of words between Democrats and Republicans on the election results.
Joe Biden blasted what he called the “insurrection” as Mr Trump, while telling the mob to “go home”, continued to make false claims of electoral fraud. The rampage came as two Democrats won Senate seats in elections in Georgia, which shifted the balance of power in favour of Democrats and paving the way for Joe Biden to be sworn in as the next President of the United States on 20th January.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump pledged an “orderly transition” of power. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have temporarily suspended Trump’s accounts on their platforms, accusing him of breaking their content regulations, after violence broke out at the US Capital early this morning. While Twitter blocked Trump’s account for 12 hours, Facebook and Instagram suspended the accounts for 24 hours. Twitter also removed three tweets made by Trump.
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