[Central News Agency] The 118th U.S. Congress opened today. The Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives after a four-year hiatus. However, due to the far-right boycott within the party, Republican leader McCarthy lost two consecutive rounds of speaker votes.

This is the first time in a century that the House of Representatives failed to produce a speaker in the first round of voting.

The 118th U.S. Congress opened at noon today, but the House of Representatives has been stuck in a stalemate in the election of the speaker and has been unable to start operation.

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At present, Kevin McCarthy, the most popular speaker candidate in the Republican Party, got only 203 votes in two consecutive rounds of voting due to the boycott by the extreme right-wing forces in the party.

In the first round of voting, the far right of the Republican Party nominated former "House Freedom Caucus" (House Freedom Caucus) Chairman Andy Biggs (Andy Biggs) to challenge McCarthy, and the Democratic Party nominated the first African-American leader of the House of Representatives, New York State Representative Jay Hakeem Jeffries is up for speaker.

In the case of 19 Republicans "running votes", McCarthy only got 203 votes, Biggs got 10 votes, and Jim Jordan, a conservative congressman from Ohio who competed with McCarthy for the Republican leadership in 2018, won Received 6 votes, with 3 votes for other party members.

In contrast, Jeffries received the solidarity and support of all 212 Democratic congressmen, highlighting the problem of internal strife and division in the Republican Party.

This is the first time since 1923 that the House of Representatives failed to produce a speaker candidate in the first round; that year, the House of Representatives voted nine times to re-elect the then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Gillett (Frederick Gillett).

In the second round of voting, the extreme right wing of the Republican Party nominated Jordan for speaker. Although Jordan himself called on party members to vote for McCarthy before the vote, McCarthy still only got 203 votes, and Jordan got 19 votes; the Democratic Party voted again, 212 All votes for Jeffreys.

In the past, the election of the speaker of the House of Representatives was mostly a formal ballot, and the candidates were mostly determined before the election.

However, the Republican House of Representatives in this Congress has 222 seats, only 10 seats more than the Democrats. McCarthy can only lose 4 votes in the party, which gives the extreme right-wing forces in the Republican Party more leverage to negotiate with McCarthy.

Although McCarthy has recently made a series of concessions, including agreeing that five MPs in the future will be able to propose a motion to "vacate the chair", the extreme right still refuses to pay the bill and demands that one MP be able to initiate a motion.

This rule has been used to blackmail the speaker many times in the past. Democratic Party Nancy Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi) revised the rule after winning the speaker's seat in 2019. Only the leader of the party group can propose a motion to remove the speaker.

McCarthy held a closed-door meeting with Republicans this morning in an attempt to make a last-ditch effort before the speaker election, but no significant progress has been made.

After the meeting, he was interviewed and criticized some members of the party for only caring about their own status and disregarding the country. He also said that he is the record holder for the longest speech in the House of Representatives, "I don't care and also set the record for the most speaker votes."

According to The Washington Post, it took nearly two months and 133 votes to elect the speaker of the House of Representatives in 1856, which is the longest speaker election so far.

(Editor: Chen Zhengyi) 1120104