Leaked
Democrat Emails Trigger DNC Crisis
Hacked emails overshadow the Democratic National
Convention as Philadelphia braces for anti-Clinton
protests.
By Dalia Hatuqa
July 254, 2016
"Information
Clearing House"
- "Al
Jazeera"
-
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
– On the eve of
the Democratic National Convention, party members
grappled to contain a crisis brought about by a
trove of email leaks that confirmed some suspicions
that the party was biased against former
presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Sanders
called for DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to
step down, after an email exchange involving her
seemed to confirm allegations by his campaign that
the party was secretly supporting presumptive
nominee Hillary Clinton.
The
incident will most likely widen the chasm between
supporters of the two camps, as Clinton vies for
their support the week she is to be officially
nominated as the party's presidential candidate.
Schultz,
who is currently under pressure to resign, is
reportedly not going to be speaking at the event - a
clear snub and a rarity for any party chair.
"The
short-term fallout is Wasserman Schultz is
marginalised at the convention and is out of office
very soon," said David Meyer, professor of political
science at UC Irvine.
"She will
probably continue to hold her seat in the House of
Representatives though. But nobody is surprised that
the party favoured Clinton."
Democrats
are also scrambling to unite their front: Clinton
and Sanders supporters agreed to form a "unity
commission" to limit the role of superdelegates -
those who are not bound to vote as per primary
results - in the next election cycle.
This was a
point of contention in the lead up to the DNC:
Sanders won a high number of primaries and caucuses,
but superdelegates - party members free to back the
candidate of their choice - still voted for Clinton.
"Clinton
needs to make sure she has the Bernie backers on her
side," said Patrick Meirick, director of the
Political Communication Centre, a research
institution and archive of political advertisements
at the University of Oklahoma.
"I expect
to see some conciliatory noises toward the concerns
of Sanders supporters. We already saw her make some
changes on the platform."
Clinton has
super hurdles to overcome this week, one of which is
"consolidating the base on the one hand and reaching
out to the general electorate on the other hand," he
told Al Jazeera.
"I think
that Clinton up to this point has embraced the Obama
legacy and has not really addressed political
shakeups of the system per se."
Philadelphia is meanwhile bracing for a round of
protests throughout the four-day Democratic National
Convention, where delegates are converging to
formally nominate Clinton as their presidential
candidate.
More than
50,000 people are expected to arrive in the city,
including various disparate groups that will
demonstrate for different causes, among them
legalising marijuana, poverty and homelessness,
policing and environmental issues.
At least
one group will attempt to hold the world's largest
'fart-in' by having a large bean meal shortly prior,
to protest the 'rhetorical flatulence of Hillary
Clinton," according to local activist Cheri Honkala
of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.
"The idea
behind this is that this whole process stinks, and
that we can't have a revolution under any corporate
control of either political party," Honkala told Al
Jazeera.
"I know
that the Democratic Party doesn't give a damn about
people in this country, and no way would they have
given an independent socialist [Senator Bernie
Sanders] control over it."
Philadelphia City officials are preparing for
potentially rowdy demonstrations, as more than 20
protest permits have been issued. The police force
has 5,200 members, but the mayor's office would not
disclose to Al Jazeera how many of those would be
dispatched to ensure law and order.
The last
time Philadelphia hosted a national convention in
2000, nearly 400 people were arrested, some pre-emptively,
when police raided a warehouse where protesters had
gathered to prepare for demonstrations. Last year,
the city hosted Pope Francis, drawing more than a
million visitors, without any major security
incidents.
Barricades
are already up outside the Wells Fargo Centre, where
the convention is being held, and high-calibre
guests will be speaking, including US President
Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and former
president Bill Clinton.
"For
security reasons, all we can say is that we also
have specialized units involved, and a security
parameter will be put in place around the main event
centre," said Lauren Hitt, communications director
for Philadelphia's mayor.
"We want to
make sure that people are able to exercise their
expression of the First Amendment safely."
Search
the DNC email database
Bernie Sanders Calls for
Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Resign in Wake of Email
Leaks : “I told
you long time ago that the DNC was not running a
fair operation, that they were supporting Secretary
Clinton,” Sanders told ABC News’ George
Stephanopoulos Sunday on “This Week.” “So what I
suggested to be true six months ago turned out to be
true.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
will resign after convention:
The move is the culmination of months of accusations
that the chairwoman had put her thumb on the scales
for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee
Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and less than
two days after a hacker leaked emails lending
credence to that theory.
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