Americas

Americas

Republican presidential candidate Cain ends his campaign

04 December 2011 04:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Republican U.S. presidential candidate Herman Cain, ex-head of the Godfatherâ€™s Pizza chain, ended his election campaign after accusations of sexual misconduct, APA reports referring en.rian.ru website.

"I am suspending my campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt," Cain said.

"Iâ€™ve made mistakes professionally, personally, as a candidate, in terms of how I run my campaign. And I take responsibility for the mistakes that Iâ€™ve made. And Iâ€™ve been the very first to own up to any mistakes Iâ€™ve made," he went on.

He said that in the near future he would announce whom he would support at the 2012 elections.

In October and November 65-year-old Cain was accused of "inappropriate behavior" by four women who worked for the National Restaurant Association during Cainâ€™s tenure as its head in 1996-99. In late November a woman from Atlanta said she had a 13-year-long affair with him.

The information, which Cain persistently denied, led to a sharp decline in his approval rating, from 25 to 14 percent. Cain led opinion polls in summer and early autumn, but currently trails behind other Republican challengers - Mitt Romney, a former governor of the state of New Hampshire (24 percent) and Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the US House of Representatives (22 percent).