US Election: Former High-Profile MPs Back Biden to Win ‘Incredibly Important’ US Election

Former high-profile New Zealand politicians back Biden to win the US election, but warn that he is still too close to definitively call a winner.

An election Joe Biden was inclined to win by a landslide turned into a nail bite as the votes are counted in the US.

A spokeswoman for the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, declined to comment on the elections as they drew closer, as the outcome was not yet clear.

But National’s foreign affairs spokesman Simon Bridges said it was an “incredibly important” choice for New Zealand, in terms of some vital foreign affairs.

These include global trade, climate change and regional security, Bridges said.

“More generally, as the world continues to become more unpredictable and volatile, we will be confident that the next president will take the lead in what follows.”

But US Ambassador Scott Brown said that from New Zealand’s perspective, it doesn’t matter who wins.

“Frankly, this does not affect New Zealand-US relations at all, at all,” he said at the election day party at the US embassy in Wellington.

“We will be vibrant and healthy; we share common values ​​regardless of who the president is.”

Brown told attendees that his country had an “amazing” democracy.
“It may not be pretty, but it is definitely vibrant.”

But as the votes rolled in, there were riots in the United States and hundreds took to the streets in anger; some of them armed.

Brown criticized groups, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, for causing violence across the United States.

“You see the violence and you see some of the problems at home. Am I upset? Of course I’m upset, of course I am,” he said.

“I think the message of George Floyd’s death has been hijacked by people who, frankly, want a different agenda.”

Meanwhile, the former deputies weren’t ashamed to support Biden.

Former House Vice Speaker and former National Minister Anne Tolley said she backed Biden, as did Labor’s Louisa Wall.

Peter Dunne, a former United Future leader turned political commentator, said he hoped Biden would win, too.

“Simply because it is more likely to introduce stability in the international environment; it is clearly absent at this point with the Trump presidency.”

He said that Trump’s presidency has been “unique.”

“There has never been a president like him.”

“I think he has broken all the rules, he has rewritten the rule book and I think he has caused great concern as a result.”

His comments are similar to those of former New Zealand prime minister and ambassador to the United States Jim Bolger, who said Trump’s leadership has been “unpredictable and unfocused.”

“America has turned inward under the leadership of Donald Trump and that is not good news for the world or the United States,” he said.

But former Commerce Minister Tim Grosser, who was also New Zealand’s ambassador to the United States, was a bit more diplomatic when he spoke to MediaWorks.

He did not say who he was backing, but said the New Zealand government will find a Biden administration “more comfortable and easier to deal with.”

He said Trump has been “a pretty unconventional president” and a Biden administration would be “much more orthodox.”