Tight Iowa race for Buttigieg, Sanders
Results still not all in as glitches plague early vote
Pete Buttigieg led in the Iowa caucuses in initial results, cementing his status as a credible contender after an extraordinary rise from the little-known mayor of a small Indiana city to the top tier of the presidential race.
With 62 per cent of precincts reporting, Bernie Sanders was a close second with his promises to deliver Medicare for All and lead a political revolution against wealth inequality.
The results were a major setback for Joe Biden, who was in fourth place behind Elizabeth Warren.
Addressing supporters in New Hampshire, the state with the next presidential contest, Buttigieg, 38, leaned into his relative youth, saying, “Every time that we have earned that Oval Office it has been with a candidate that’s focused on the future, new in politics, offering a different vision.”
Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ senior adviser, thanked the voters of Iowa and pointedly added that “in the first and second round more people voted for Bernie than any other candidate.”
On Monday night, the caucuses that were meant to give shape to the Democratic presidential race devolved into a political embarrassment for the party and left candidates and voters hanging with no results and no springboard into the next round of contests, including New Hampshire’s primary in seven days.
The chaos in Iowa began when an attempt to modernize the arcane caucus system and make it more transparent melted down with the introduction of new technology and more complex rules.
Police in Lesotho are questioning Maesiah Thabane, Prime Minister Tom Thabane’s wife, in connection with the murder of his second spouse in 2017, Harvest Radio reported, citing spokesman Mpiti Mopeli.
Maesiah Thabane will remain in custody for the next 48 hours, pending a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions to press charges, Paseka Mokete, the deputy commissioner of the police’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters in the capital, Maseru. Lesotho, an independent country surrounded by South Africa, is about 1,200 kilometres northeast of Cape Town.
Maesiah Thabane, who married the prime minister, pictured, about two months after the slaying, had been on the run after a warrant for her arrest was issued last month.
Lipolelo Thabane was estranged from her husband when she was shot dead outside her home in the capital in 2017. The killing, two days before Thabane’s inauguration, was initially blamed on unidentified gunmen.