US presidential hopeful denies sexual harassment claim

US businessman Herman Cain denied he sexually harassed former employees and battling accusations of financial misconduct in his campaign as he navigates his way at the front of the pack in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Mr Cain, who is best known for his management of a pizza restaurant chain, stunned the political establishment with his rise from national obscurity to the top of the polls. Scrutiny followed.

Yesterday, the candidate declared he had been falsely accused of sexual harassment in the 1990s while he was head of the National Restaurant Association.

He said the allegations that are surfacing now are part of a “witch hunt”.

Mr Cain was responding to a report on the website Politico that said the trade group gave financial settlements to at least two female employees who had accused him of inappropriate sexual behaviour.

The report was based on anonymous sources and, in one case, what the publication said was a review of documentation that described the allegations and the resolution. Politico said Mr Cain refused to comment when asked specifically about one of the woman’s claims.

Meanwhile the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reported that Mr Cain allowed a tax-exempt charity to illegally provide money to help his presidential campaign get started.

Mr Cain’s chief of staff, Mark Block, said the campaign has asked a lawyer to review the transactions.

The new allegations could hurt Mr Cain’s efforts to reassure the Republican establishment that someone with so little political experience – and who has not been fully vetted on a national stage – is prepared to go up against President Barack Obama next autumn.

Mr Cain has recently been at or near the top of national surveys and polls in early presidential nominating states, competitive with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, long considered the Republican to beat.

Mr Cain has been pointing to his long record in business to argue that he has the credentials to be president during a time of economic hardship.

Mr Romney is viewed warily by the party’s hard-core conservative base because he has shifted positions on issues such as abortion and gay rights from the time he was governor of Democratic-leaning Massachusetts.

He also implemented a health care reform plan in Massachusetts that served as a model for Mr Obama’s health plan that Republicans loathe.

But so far the party’s conservative wing has yet to coalesce around an alternative to Mr Romney, splitting their support among Mr Cain, Texas Governor Rick Perry, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and several others.