Faced with endless and inconclusive negotiations, the Republican candidate for the post of head of the American House of Representatives gave up on Thursday evening to run, leaving Congress to sink deeper into crisis.
Louisiana elected representative Steve Scalise, leader of the Republican group, narrowly won last Wednesday the informal election to succeed Kevin McCarthy, dismissed on October 3, to the post of speaker from the room.
But for lack of sufficient support within his party, devoured by fratricidal quarrels between moderate elected officials and Trumpist troublemakers, he announced throwing in the towel.
“It’s been quite an adventure and there’s still work to do. I have just told my colleagues that I am withdrawing my name as a candidate for the position of speaker “, Mr. Scalise told reporters.
With this announcement, the search for a new leader for the American Congress, paralyzed for more than a week, looks increasingly thorny.
Congress has two chambers: one, the Senate, is won by Joe Biden’s Democrats, but it is the other, the House of Representatives, dominated by the Republicans, which is in an unprecedented impasse.
Historic impeachment
The vast majority of the powers of this institution were suspended during the surprise dismissal of the speaker Kevin McCarthy, who exposed the gaping fractures that run through the camp of American conservatives, one year before the 2024 presidential election.
Faced with the inability of elected officials to agree on his successor, this chamber, supposed to be one of the most powerful in the world, is in incredible paralysis.
The United States is currently unable to vote for any new aid to Israel, a historic ally in the midst of war with Hamas. Nor even an additional envelope for Ukraine – invaded by Russia –, under discussion for weeks.
A mess that the world’s leading economic power – still attached to its role as world policeman – would have liked to do without.
Without speaker, the third political figure in the United States, the American Congress cannot vote on a new budget for the federal state either. The latter expires in a few weeks, which once again places the country in danger of paralysis of its public administration.
” Go home “
Steve Scalise, known for having survived a shooting in 2017, hoped to be able to submit his candidacy to a vote by all elected representatives of the House. A necessary step to access the perch.
But around ten conservatives immediately made it known that they would oppose his candidacy at all costs. They invoked, pell-mell, the budgetary positions of the elected official, the fact that he suffers from cancer, and his speech given 20 years ago at a gathering linked to a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan .
Will the blockage last a few more days? A few weeks ? Confusion appears to reign at all levels of the party.
“This country is counting on us to come together. The House of Representatives needs a speaker, and we need [la] make it work again,” said Steve Scalise.
“But it’s clear that not everyone is there. And that there are always divisions that need to be resolved,” he added.
“Why don’t we all go home and meet up next week?” » For her part, suggested Trumpist elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene Thursday afternoon.
Joe Biden’s Democratic Party is in the minority in the House, and therefore mainly spectators of the chaotic negotiations in Congress.
Unless there is a surprise alliance with moderate Republicans, which could also put an end to this unprecedented situation.
“The Republican civil war in the House continues to paralyze Congress,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries lamented Thursday, saying that “a transpartisan solution is the only way out.”