DNC chair resigns over Hillary 'bias'

Debbie Schultz

PHILADELPHIA: The Chairwoman of the Democratic party Debbie Wasserman Schultz yesterday said she would resign at the conclusion of the convention, just hours before it was to start.

Debbie Schultz was the first woman nominated by a sitting president as Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Pic/AFP

Congresswoman Schultz, Chairwoman of DNC, in a statement, announced her resignation after the emails leaked by Wikileaks showed that she tended to support Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the party's presidential primaries.

As head of the party, Schultz is supposed to be neutral. Clinton, the former secretary of state, has emerged as the winner of the Democratic presidential primaries defeating Senator Sanders from Virginia. During the primaries, the Sanders campaign had alleged that the party was not staying neutral.

She was the first woman nominated by a sitting president as Chair of the Democratic National Committee that would formally anoint Clinton as the party's presidential nominee.

'Hillary, drop out'
In a statement, the Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort demanded that following Schultz's resignation, Clinton drop out of the race. "Now Hillary Clinton should follow Wasserman Schultz's lead and drop out over her failure to safeguard top secret, classified information both on her unauthorised home server and while travelling abroad," he said. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders said he would continue to support Clinton as his main goal was to defeat Trump. He did acknowledge his disappointment over the biased support of the party leadership to the Clinton campaign.