At nearly 100, ex-US president Jimmy Carter sets sights on voting for Kamala Harris

ATLANTA - Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100 in two months, but with the US election falling just after his birthday, he has told family he has a secondary motivation for becoming a centenarian: voting for Kamala Harris.

Mr Carter, who

entered into hospice care in February 2023

has defied all odds, persevering far longer than the public expected. He will reach the hundred mark this Oct 1.

“I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” Mr Carter told his son Chip last week, according to his grandson, Mr Jason Carter, in a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.

Mr Carter, a Nobel peace laureate, champion of charitable causes and a former peanut farmer, is the longest-living president in US history.

Mr Jason Carter said his grandfather had been “more alert and interested in politics and the war in Gaza” in recent days, according to the AJC.

Since

President Joe Biden ended his candidacy

in July, Vice-President Harris, the presumptive nominee, has

reenergised the Democratic base

almost overnight in its battle to defeat Donald Trump on Nov 5.

Mr Carter, a Democrat, served one term as president after being elected in 1976 on the heels of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. His presidency included successes like the Camp David peace accords, but also controversies such as the Iran hostage crisis.

He had already beaten brain cancer in his 90s and suffered other ailments that required hospitalisation when in February 2023 the Carter Center announced he would spend his “remaining time” in hospice, at home with family.

According to the AJC, Georgia’s early voting period will allow Carter to vote as soon as Oct 15. AFP