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By Abdulrazaq Hamzat

Most popular US senator, Bernie Sanders has announced is entrance into the 2020 US presidential race.

Two days ago, the runner up to Hilary Clinton in the race to 2016 democratic nomination launched is 2020 campaign at Brooklyn with over 1 million volunteers across the country.

People ordinarily wouldn’t vote for any unknown third party. This is the same all over the world. Voting for an unknown third party will be extremely hard, especially a third party, whose campaign they are not seeing on TV and Radio almost all the time.

But you can still break the jinx, says Bernie Sanders, a strong U.S presidential candidate in the 2016 general election, now the major candidate in the race for 2020.

Before venturing into politics, many thought it was impossible for a third party candidate to win election in U.S.

To a lot of people, only Democrats and Republican are destined to win, but Bernie disagreed. He believed that, if Democrats and Republican can do it, others can do it too.

In 1971, Bernie Sanders contested for U.S Senate election as an independent candidate and lost. He didn’t only lose that election; he
got just 2% of the total vote cast. But he said to himself, this isn’t bad. I will try again.

In 1972, he ran for Governor. This time, he didn’t only lose; his votes went down to 1% of the total vote cast. He was not discouraged still. He said to himself once again, this isn’t bad, I will try again.

In 1973, he ran again for Senate and lost. This time, he got 4% of the total vote cast. In 1975, he ran again for governor and still lost. He got 6% of the total vote cast.

In 4 years, he ran 4 times and lost in all 4 attempts. After the 4th attempt, he retired from politics for 5 years.

But in 1981, 5 years later, some people from his state came to him to run for city mayor. It’s more like a Local Government Chairman
Election in Nigeria. He was reluctant at first due to his 4 previous failures, especially after running for Governor and senate, but he oblige.

Bernie Sanders ran this time again for Mayor as an independent candidate and surprisingly, he won the election by just 14 votes. It was unbelievable; an independent candidate defeated the almighty Democrat and Republican Party.

But this was a democratic strong hold nobody thought an unknown candidate could win. So, while Bernie and his supporters were celebrating the victory, the Democrat runner up could not believe this unknown independent could win, he challenged the election result. He believed there must have been an error somewhere.

The votes had to be recounted and after the vote recount, Bernie still won, but
this time with less than 10 votes.

Although, he has won and scaled through the first hurdle, he has to work with the elected democrat city council official.

This means that, he can’t hire his own staff. As a matter of fact, the personal secretary
he hired was sacked by the city council officials. Those democrats didn’t allow him govern with his own ideas. This went on for about a year, until in 1982 when another city council election took place.

Bernie urged many new guys to run for City Council election and they did.

He campaigned for them and among these guys, 6 won. These 6 winners gave him the required veto power to get his ideas running.

After taking charge fully with his own like minded team, he embarked on several pro masses reforms and he got re-elected after 2 years in 1983. He ran again in 1985 and still won.

Faced with opportunity to move up in the political ladder, Bernie ran again for governor in 1986, but he lost the governorship election.
This time, he got 14% of the total vote cast.

2 years later in 1988, he ran for Congress seat and lost. He was the runner up with 31% vote, trailing the winner who got 34%. He was
determined to run again. He said to himself, if as an independent candidate, I can have 31% of the votes, definitely, I can get even more. So in 1988, he ran again for U.S Congress and this time, he won with a very wide margin. He got more than 50% of the total vote and ever
since, he has been running and winning.

Today, Bernie is the longest serving Congress man in the history of U.S.

In 2016, for the first time in history, he joined the Democratic Party to run for U.S presidential election.

He was rigged out by the establishment, but despite losing due to rigging, he has remained consistent with is nationwide advocacy for the issues affecting the ordinary people. Today, he his the most popular politician in U.S, even more popular than the President in terms of favourable rating.

After losing the Presidential election, he created a massive peoples organization called the Our Revolution, a nationwide organization that is forcing those in authority to listen to the people. Most of his ideas have gained nationwide acceptability and this is going to define the race for 2020.

The organisation, Our Revolution is articulating the issues and proffering solutions. Through his position at the Congress, Bernie is sponsoring bills to advance the
cause of the people and mobilizing them to hold their representative accountable to ensure those bills scale through.

Today, Bernie is 76years old, but he his running to win the US Presidency in 2020.

As i have consistently said in the past, if he runs again in 2020, he will become the next President of United States of America and now that he’s running, he is like a president in waiting.

The point here is that, it doesn’t necessarily have to be one of the two major parties. Young people must be courageous enough to go under smaller parties.

A small party of yesterday may eventually become the big party and the unknown candidate of yesterday may become the most
popular candidate today.

It also doesn’t necessarily have to be about age. An old competent and dedicated person maybe more useful than a young thoughtless
person. Age is not a reason to throw competence and capacity to
deliver to the gutter.

Politics is the only realistic means to good
governance in a democracy. If you elect a fool to be your representative, you will be forced to live by the laws he make. If you elect a looter, you will live by the consequence of his looting.

And provided the wrong people remain in government, the status quo will always remain.