The presidential election in the United States is taking place at a very volatile time in the world – Jornal da USP

The topic of this week’s column is the North American presidential election, which will take place in November, with Donald Trump from the Republican Party and Kamala Harris as the candidate, who is expected to be confirmed at the Democratic Party Convention. Professor Pedro Dallari addresses the main features of the electoral process, such as bipartisanship, party conventions and election by an Electoral College.

“North American elections have a peculiarity, which is that to determine the result, the votes are counted state by state, in this way, the candidate who wins the election in most of the 50 North American states is the one who wins in a given state. It has the support of the state in the presidential election, which, in the end, will be done by an electoral college. Therefore, it is not enough to have more votes in the popular election, but it is important to win in the states that ensure the greatest number of votes in this electoral college. It may also happen that a candidate wins the popular election and fails to obtain more votes in the electoral college and loses the election. It is a much criticized system, but it has been in force in the United States for more than 200 years”, he explains.

Dallari also talks about the importance of these elections, because of the serious problems that the contemporary world is facing, such as the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, global warming and the setback in promoting human rights. “Today the world is facing a very problematic situation, a very unstable global situation, and the two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, have very different formulas to deal with this problem. The Republican Donald Trump is refractory to the idea of ​​multilateralism, to the idea of ​​globalization and defends a much more aggressive position for the United States. On the other hand, the Democrats are traditionally in favor of global understanding within international organizations, at least in this current context. Unlike the old elections, in this North American election it will be at stake how this country, which is the leading country in the world in economic terms and in military terms, will deal with the serious crises of the contemporary world”, he believes.

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