New York governor accused of sexual harassment clings to his post

The governor of New York State again refused Friday, March 12, to resign, despite growing pressure to do so after a series of accusations of sexual harassment and touching against him.

"

I will not resign

", declared Andrew Cuomo during a telephone press point, assuring, as the previous week, "

not to have done

" the things of which he has been accused by six women, successively, since the end of February. .

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The 63-year-old Democratic governor, who in two weeks has lost all the prestige acquired for his management of the pandemic in 2020, once again called to "

wait for the facts

", in other words the results of the inquiries announced on these allegations.

He suggested that he could be a victim of the "

cancel culture

", which wants works deemed offensive to be withdrawn, or that people found guilty of abuse or discrimination against sexual or ethnic minorities, must apologize or even be removed from the public sphere.

“

Politicians take positions for all kinds of reasons, including political opportunism or to give in to pressure.

But people know the difference between the political game, the cancel culture and the truth

”, he declared.

Impeachment procedure

He whom some urged to run for the White House in 2020 therefore intends to do everything to continue to govern the State of New York, of which he has held the reins for 10 years.

Clinging to his post, unlike other men of power who, since the start of the #MeToo era, have had to throw in the towel after accusations of harassment or sexual assault, mostly before the survey results.

Read also: In New York, the fall of Governor Andrew Cuomo

But the pressure continues to mount, with increased strength since Wednesday, when one of his employees, who remained anonymous, made the most serious accusations to date: she accuses him of having put her hand under her clothes and of having touched her "

aggressively

" at the end of 2020, in her official residence, an accusation serious enough to have been notified to the police.

In the process, some sixty elected Democrats in the New York parliament stopped supporting him and are now calling for his resignation, precipitating the opening of an investigation by a parliamentary committee - in addition to the investigations already launched by the prosecutor of the state.

On Friday, influential New Yorkers elected to the Federal Congress followed suit, including left-wing star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or veteran Manhattan representative Jerry Nadler.

The latest allegation "

is worrying for the safety and immediate well-being of the governor's staff

", who can "no

longer lead effectively,

" said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known as "

AOC

", in a joint statement with another representative New Yorker, Jamaal Bowman.

Andrew Cuomo "

has lost the confidence of New Yorkers

" and "

must resign,

" said Jerry Nadler for his part.

The duration of the two investigations initiated into the allegations against him has not been determined.

“

No one wants them to be done comprehensively and quickly as much as I do

,” said Andrew Cuomo on Friday.

If the pressures continue and the governor still refuses to resign, only an impeachment procedure seems to be able to force him to do so.

Such a procedure, unprecedented since 1913, requires a simple majority in the lower house and two-thirds in the upper house.