WASHINGTON, Jan 31: US Republicans have elected their party’s first African-American leader, hoping to draw younger and more diverse voters after bitter losses in November, when Democrat Barack Obama became the first black to win the White House.

After being voted in as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) on Friday, rising political star Michael Steele vowed to revitalise conservatives in a party he and others acknowledge needs a makeover in order to regain some of its lost political stature.

“We’re going to bring this party to every corner, every boardroom, every neighbourhood, every community,” he said after his victory over several other Republican insiders.“We’re going to say to friend and foe alike we want you to be a part of us, we want you to work with us. And for those of you who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over,” Mr Steele, 50, said after six ballots to choose the new RNC chairman.

On a day of high political drama, the former lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland and candidate for US Senate in 2006 defeated several powerful GOP insiders, including South Carolina party chairman Katon Dawson in the final ballot. He won by a vote of 91 to 77, with 85 votes needed to win.

Mr Steele, who is the son of a laundress and who had a successful career in business before being elected Maryland’s lieutenant governor, is tasked with rejuvenating and diversifying a party that is overwhelmingly white.

Republicans were left licking their wounds after losing the presidency in November and seeing Democrats solidify their grip on both houses of Congress.

“I look forward to visiting all of you in your neighbourhoods, in your backyards as we grow and build the Republican Party of this country,” he said.

Mr Steele’s victory puts minority African-Americans at the pinnacle of the country’s two major parties, capping a remarkable year of ascendancy for blacks in US politics, after Obama became the nation’s first black president.

His win is all the more startling given the toxic atmosphere throughout stretches of the presidential campaign last year, when Republicans were accused of not-so-subtly injecting race into the campaign.

But with the drubbing they received in November, Republican leaders have acknowledged that their party suffers from an image problem.

“My concern is unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

In a statement released after the vote, the RNC said Mr Steele was a “self-described Lincoln Republican,” referring to Civil War-era president Abraham Lincoln whom President Obama counts as his own political hero.

Mr Steele’s counterpart Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman, congratulated him and hoped he could work with him to “put partisanship and the politics of the past aside to get our economy working again.

“The American people have sent a clear message that the challenges we face are too great for us to get bogged down by outmoded ideological divides,” Mr Kaine said in a statement.

The final RNC vote pitted Mr Steele against K. Dawson, a white Southerner. And another candidate for the Republican chairmanship, Chip Saltsman, triggered another bout of soul-searching for the party last month when he sent out CDs of a song about Mr Obama titled “Barack the Magic Negro”.—AFP