Dina Mahmoud (London)
As the countdown to the upcoming US presidential elections accelerates, researchers specializing in US political history called on the two campaigns competing to enter the White House to be cautious of any unexpected developments that may be witnessed in the remaining few weeks, before polling day.
In this regard, researchers point to what is known as the “October surprise,” a term that crystallized on the American political scene for the first time in the 1980s, to describe any sudden development that the presidential race may witness in its final stages, tipping the balance in favor of one of its participants over the other.
Over the past few days, there has been renewed talk about this “surprise” and the possibility of it occurring before the November 5 elections, following statements made by Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State.
Clinton was keen to seize the opportunity of a recent television interview to say that she expected something to happen in October, as always happens, warning Harris that she would face “intensive efforts to distort” her image and reduce her chances of winning.
In the eyes of observers, Clinton’s statements gain special importance, given that she herself was among the victims of the “October surprise.”
Less than a month before her election confrontation with Trump in November 2016, WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of emails that had been hacked from a computer belonging to her campaign chairman, fueling doubts about accusations that had been leveled against her at the time, about her prior access to… Questions were asked to her in debates she participated in, within the framework of the primary elections within the Democratic Party.
But the list of victims of the “October surprise” does not include Hillary Clinton alone. 16 years ago, candidate John McCain was on a date with his own annoying surprise, ahead of his electoral bout with then-Democratic President Barack Obama.
In that year, the entire world witnessed a severe financial crisis, which caused a recession that was felt by American voters in October 2008, a few weeks before the vote.
Although the United States was suffering at that time from the highest unemployment rate in years, McCain made controversial statements in which he considered that the policies of the ruling Republican administration at the time had strong foundations, which opened the door for Obama to accuse him of being out of touch with ordinary Americans, and to win. On it eventually.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon made a similar surprise, even if it was false, when his then National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, announced that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam, allowing the war there to end, which seemed to be the fulfillment of a pledge he had made. Nixon had committed himself, before assuming the presidency for the first time, years earlier, to silence the voices of the guns in this Asian country.
Although it later turned out, as the American newspaper USA Today said on the website of its European edition, that this announcement was much premature, as the war continued for two years after that, Kissinger’s statements strengthened Nixon’s lead in the opinion polls, and led He won the elections, less than two weeks after voting.
American researchers say that the first time the presidential elections witnessed an “October surprise” was in 1840, when then-president Martin Van Buren, during that month, accused his political opponents of fraud, buying votes, and tampering with them, but this was to no avail, and he lost. The race is against William Henry Harrison, who subsequently became the ninth President of the United States.
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