Nephew of slain US president Kennedy announces presidential bid
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Mr Robert F. Kennedy Jr delivering a speech announcing his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 19, 2023.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BOSTON - Mr Robert Kennedy Jr, a noted anti-vaccine advocate whose uncle was the 35th president of the United States, formally announced his own White House bid on Wednesday.
The 69-year-old outsider intends to compete for the Democratic Party’s nomination against incumbent President Joe Biden, who has yet to announce his re-election bid but has repeatedly said he plans to run.
Mr Kennedy’s father Robert F. Kennedy served as attorney-general under his older brother, the Democratic president John F. Kennedy, and later as a US senator from New York.
The assassinations of both brothers – Mr John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Mr Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 during his own presidential campaign – are viewed as among the most significant events in 20th-century US politics.
Mr Robert Kennedy Jr worked for decades as an environmental lawyer, but has been known since 2005 for promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines, notably linking them to the development of autism.
“I’ve come here today to announce my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States,” he said at his campaign launch event in Massachusetts, the stronghold of the Kennedy family.
Among the crowd assembled in state capital Boston, several supporters wore caps with anti-vaccine messages.
Mr Kennedy vowed to end the deep political division in the US by “telling the truth to the American people”.
Despite his highly recognisable name, Mr Kennedy’s bid is a long shot against Mr Biden, whose own official launch is expected later in the year,
A few others have also announced they will challenge Mr Biden, 80, for the Democratic nomination, but no other high-profile names have joined the race. AFP
