Americans elect a new President in just over two weeks and most of the polls are showing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton leading by a comfortable margin against Republican nominee Donald Trump in the overall popular vote. Most crucially, however, Clinton is also leading in most of the key battleground states – which always determine the election outcome.

If the polls are correct, or if voters don’t change their mind at the last minute, then Clinton will be elected President. If, however, some voters are too embarrassed to tell the pollsters that they intend to vote for Trump, and instead claim that they are going to vote for Clinton or for another small party candidate, then it’s a different story.

This latter point was emphasised last week by Prof. Paul Sracic, the Chair of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Youngstown State University in Ohio, who gave a very interesting presentation in Malta on the presidential election. Prof. Sracic also stressed that voter turnout will be a very important factor in the election, which has the potential to favour Trump, as the Republican candidate’s core support among voters is larger than Clinton’s. This is why both Clinton and President Barack Obama have been urging people to vote.

Trump has had a very bad two weeks and he has been unable to turn things around in the polls. The tape of him making lewd comments about women damaged his presidential bid considerably, leading to a number of Republicans abandoning him. This was followed by a number of women claiming that he had groped or kissed them without their consent. The polls also showed that last week’s third and last presidential debate, as well as the second one the previous week, were won by Clinton, even though Trump began the third debate quite well. In both debates Clinton kept her cool, was dignified and presidential, and was without doubt much better prepared than her opponent.

She didn’t always answer the questions directly, and ignored some of the points raised by her opponent, but she never made any gaffes and always managed to put Trump on the defensive. Trump, on the other hand, was impulsive, very economical with the truth, extremely populist in his arguments and sometimes offensive – he called Clinton a “nasty woman” in last week’s debate and said she had “tremendous hate in her heart” in the second debate.

But perhaps Trump’s most shocking declaration was his refusal, in Wednesday’s debate, to commit to accepting the election result if he loses. “I will tell you at the time,” he told moderator Chris Wallace, sending shockwaves throughout the US and the world. In the first presidential debate three-and-a-half weeks ago, however, Trump had said that he would support Clinton if she won the election, something most of the media overlooked after his latest outburst.

Incredibly, Trump had been claiming for a number of days before Thursday’s debate that the election was “rigged” and pressed for an explanation about this he said the media was biased against him and that “millions” of voters were registered when they shouldn’t have been. The day after the debate he said he would accept the result of the election – if he was the winner. He then added he would accept “a clear election result” but reserved the right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result.

I sincerely hope Americans make the right choice. The whole world is watching

I can’t stress enough just how damaging Trump’s comments about the legitimacy of the election are to the US and to America’s global image. Just look at it this way: the leader of the free world which is so proud of its democratic values and traditions has a presidential candidate of a main political party who is claiming the election is rigged and who won’t declare that he’ll recognise the electoral result. The American brand has been damaged by Trump, and the next time the US government criticises a particular country’s lack of democratic practices the obvious response will be: “Shouldn’t you look at your own country first?”

It now looks unlikely (although nothing is impossible in today’s political climate) that Donald Trump will be able to reverse his decline in the polls. He certainly failed to attract new supporters during last week’s debate, and even though he made a huge effort to restrain himself and concentrate on policy issues in the first part of the debate, where he initially gave a reasonable performance, he ruined everything with his answer about whether he would accept the election result. In my opinion he also went overboard in his exaggerated criticism of the Obama administration’s record as well as Clinton’s record of public service.

For example, here are some of Trump’s more outrageous claims made in Wednesday’s   debate: Clinton and Obama co-ordinated the violence at one of his rallies in Chicago earlier this year; thousands of refugees pour into America every year without any background checks whatsoever; the decision to retake Mosul was taken by the Iraqi government to help the Clinton campaign; and Iran is taking over Iraq and the liberation of Mosul will only help Teheran.

I think Clinton also scored points in the debate by linking Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin, especially when she highlighted the fact that 17 US agencies said they believed a number of e-mails were hacked by Russia and passed on to Wikileaks to hurt her campaign. Trump probably scored some points, on the other hand, by his claim that Russian influence in the Middle East has never been at such a high level, and that Putin has outmanoeuvred the US in Syria. But as usual, Trump went overboard by saying that Russia had “taken over” the Middle East. He also failed to acknowledge that Russia’s involvement in Syria really took off after Clinton had left the State Department.

This election boils down to a choice between who is the most suitable and most qualified candidate to become the next President of the US. Hillary Clinton is certainly not perfect, she has her flaws, and one cannot agree with all her policies, but there can be no doubt that she is the better candidate of the two. A Donald Trump presidency would create a shock to the global economy, especially because of his protectionist beliefs, it would destabilise the world and it would cause huge divisions in American society.

Mr Trump has insulted women, people with disability, blacks, Hispanics and Muslims. He has stoked hatred towards immigrants and claimed America is on the verge of economic collapse. He has undermined Nato, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested countries like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia should possess nuclear weapons and has shown no understanding at all of basic geo-political issues. He does not have the temperament to be commander-in-chief and is without doubt unfit to be President of the US.

On Thursday the bitter election campaign was put on hold for a few hours as Clinton and Trump poked fun at each other at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York, hosted by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. This is a white-tie gala held every four years where the presidential candidates make jokes about themselves and each other. Although the two candidates did not say any nice things about each other – which is contrary to what normally happens – it was a light-hearted and humorous event, even though Trump was sometimes booed by the audience.

There is nothing light-hearted, however, about the election on November 8, and I sincerely hope Americans make the right choice. The whole world is watching.

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