By IANS,
New Delhi : Barack Obama’s presidency of the US was an inevitability whose time had come, Left leaders said Wednesday, adding that they don’t expect any foreign policy changes from the “imperialist” country.
“It was inevitable. It took a while coming but it has happened. It has taken a long time to elect a black president. But this may repeat itself in future elections too,” said N.N. Krishnadas, a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MP in Lok Sabha.
“Statistics show that the black population in the US will cross 60 percent in the coming years,” Krishnadas told IANS.
“But we don’t expect changes in the imperialist policies of the US because imperialism is the base of US foreign policy.”
Obama, 47, the first African American to occupy the White House, was sworn in Tuesday as the 44th president of the US. An estimated two million people attended his swearing-in ceremony in Washington.
T.J. Chandrachoodan, general secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), hailed the move: “An African-American becoming the president of the US is a great matter. He is assuming the office in the midst of a devastating financial situation and very complicated global crisis. We (the Left parties) don’t expect any miracle from him.”
Forward Bloc national secretary G. Devarajan said former president George W. Bush’s unpopular financial and foreign policies helped Obama defeat the Republican candidate John McCain in the elections.
“People of the US hated Bush for his unpopular policies. They strongly reacted in the elections and voted for Obama,” Devarajan said.