Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign nominated on a major party ticket. On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, making him the President-elect and the first African American elected President. He was the third sitting U.S. Senator, after Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy, to be elected president. Upon the vote of the Electoral College on December 15, 2008, and the subsequent certification thereof by a Joint Session of the United States Congress on January 8, 2009, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States and Joe Biden Vice President of the United States, with 365 of
Vice President of the Maldives President Gayoom on 7 August 2008, the post of Vice President was once again created with the duties described above. Under the new constitution, Dr. Mohammed Waheed Hassan of the Gaumee Itthihaad Party became the first "elected" Vice President of Maldives and was sworn into office on November 11, 2008. Mohamed Nasheed was elected into office as the President of the Maldives and together they effectively ended the 30 year rule of then Asia's longest serving ruler President Gayoom. Dr. Waheed was the senior most Maldivian in the United Nations when he retired from it in June 2008, in order