United States President, Joe Biden, has dropped out of the country’s presidential race barely four months to the election.
Biden cited being pressured by the Democrats to withdraw his re-election bid as reason for the decision.
Since his sloppy outing during the recent Presidential Debate, the oldest sitting president in the United States’ history had been labouring without success to convince his party and a section of the American population that he could pilot the affairs of the country effectively beyond 2024 despite age and frail gait.
Fellow Democrats including over 30 Congress members publicly pushed for his withdrawal from the race.
In a post on X, Biden, 81, said he will remain in his role as president and commander-in-chief until his term ends in January 2025 and will address the nation this week.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote.
His initial statement had not included an endorsement of Kamala Harris, but he followed up a few minutes later with an expression of support and endorsement.
Biden said, “My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” Biden’s post said.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice-president. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Harris, 59, would become the first Black woman to do run at the top of a major-party ticket in the country’s history.
The Democratic backlash against Biden came after he delivered an unsteady performance at the first presidential debate of the 2024 election season as he lost his train of thought and struggled to articulate basic talking points.
The 46th US president’s departure from the race leaves the Democratic Party in an unprecedented situation, with only a month until the Democratic National Convention and less than four months until the November 5 election.
It was unclear whether other senior Democrats would challenge Harris for the party’s nomination – she was widely seen as the pick for many party officials – or whether the party itself would choose to open the field for nominations.
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said Biden had been under a lot of pressure recently.
“It is very difficult to say what made him make the decision now,” he said. “What we do know is that he has been repeatedly insistent that he would not step down… So it comes as a bit of a surprise and a bit of a shock that Biden is saying he will step down after weeks of saying he won’t.”
•AL Jazeera, News Agencies
