Trump shocker

NAMPA/AFP



Political novice and former reality TV star Donald Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton to take the US presidency, stunning America and the world in an explosive upset fuelled by a wave of grassroots anger.

The Republican mogul immediately pledged to unite a deeply divided nation. But global markets had already plunged into turmoil and the long-standing global political order, which hinges on Washington''s leadership, was cast into doubt.

Around the world, as the once feared prospect of a Trump presidency settled in as cold, hard reality, the surprise was greeted with warnings that America had lurched into a national crisis, its leader "an unstable bigot, sexual predator and compulsive liar," in the words of Britain''s The Guardian newspaper.

Trump called for national reconciliation in his first comments after Clinton conceded defeat in a result that virtually no poll had dreamed of predicting, her hopes of becoming the first female US president brutally dashed.

"Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division," Trump told a cheering crowd of jubilant supporters in the early hours of Wednesday in New York, pledging to work with Democrats in office.

"I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans," he declared.

Trump praised Clinton - in the last presidential debate, he called her a "nasty woman" - for her hard work and years of public service. His campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said the pair had a "very gracious, very warm conversation" by phone that lasted about a minute.

"We owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country," Trump said of Clinton.

In his first post-election tweet, Trump wrote: "The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before."

As day broke in Washington, the White House said President Barack Obama called Trump to congratulate him. Trump will visit him there today.

During a bitter two-year campaign that tugged at America''s democratic fabric, the 70-year-old tycoon pledged to deport illegal immigrants, ban Muslims from the country and tear up free-trade deals.

There was no disguising the concern of Washington''s European partners that Trump''s victory might destroy the Western alliance they still regard as a touchstone for stability and the rule of law.

Russia''s autocratic leader Vladimir Putin said he wanted to rebuild "full-fledged relations" with the United States after Trump''s victory, as he warmly congratulated the president-elect.

But EU leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker invited him to an EU-US summit at his "earliest convenience" to seek reassurances about transatlantic ties.

And NATO head Jens Stoltenberg warned Trump, who spoke during the campaign of making US allies take a bigger share of the Western security burden, that "US leadership is more important than ever".

Trump openly courted Putin during the race, called US support for NATO allies in Europe into question and suggested that South Korea and Japan should develop their own nuclear weapons.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted to Trump''s election by insisting that his country and the United States are "unshakeable allies."

Some of the most enthusiastic support for Trump came from far-right and nationalist politicians in Europe such as French opposition figure Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini of Italy''s Northern League and British Eurosceptic Nigel Farage.

Trump will become America''s 45th commander-in-chief of the world''s sole true superpower on January 20.

The results prompted a global market sell-off, with stocks plunging across Asia and Europe and billions being wiped off the value of investments.

Trump''s message was embraced by a large section of America''s white majority who have grown increasingly disgruntled by the scope of social and economic change in the last eight years under Obama, their first black president.

Many Americans from minority backgrounds expressed dismay at Trump''s victory, which some observers blamed on a backlash against multicultural America.

Although he has no government experience and in recent years has been as well known for running beauty pageants and starring on his reality television series ‘The Apprentice’ as he is for building his property empire, Trump is the oldest man ever elected president.

Yet, during his improbable political rise, Trump has constantly proved the pundits and standard political wisdom wrong.

Opposed by the senior hierarchy of his own Republican Party, he trounced more than a dozen better-funded and more experienced rivals in the party primary.

During the race, he was forced to ride out credible allegations of sexual assault from a dozen women and was embarrassed but apparently not ashamed to have been caught on tape boasting about grabbing women''s genitals.

And, unique in modern US political history, he refused to release his tax returns - leaving a question mark over how much, if any, tax he has paid while running a global empire.

But the biggest upset came on Tuesday, as he swept to victory through a series of hard-fought wins in battleground states from Florida to Ohio. He amassed at least 290 electoral votes to 218 for Clinton, according to network projections.

Clinton had been widely assumed to be on course to enter the history books as the first woman to become president in America''s 240-year existence.

Americans repudiated her call for unity among Americans with their wide cultural and racial diversity, opting instead for a leader who insisted the country is broken and that "I alone can fix it".

Trump has an uneasy relationship with the broader Republican Party.

But it will have full control of Congress and he will be able to appoint a ninth Supreme Court justice to a vacant seat on the bench, ensuring that conservatism''s long rise and predominance among the black-robed justices will not be interrupted for now.

So great was the shock of defeat that the normally robust Clinton did not come out to her supporters'' poll-watching party to concede defeat, but instead called Trump and sent her campaign chairman.

The campaign confirmed Clinton herself would speak early Wednesday.

The election result was also a brutal humiliation for the White House incumbent, Obama, who for eight years has repeated the credo that there is no black or white America, only the United States of America.

On the eve of the election, he told tens of thousands of people in Philadelphia that he was betting on the decency of the American people.

"I''m betting that tomorrow, most moms and dads across America won''t cast their vote for someone who denigrates their daughters," Obama said.

"I''m betting that tomorrow, true conservatives won''t cast their vote for somebody with no regard for the Constitution."

His bet appears to have been flat out wrong, and America''s first black president will be succeeded by a candidate who received the endorsement - albeit unsought and unacknowledged - of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan.