The former president Barack Obama has said he did not expect the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and is “not surprised” by his refusal to commit to a peaceful transition. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais to promote his book A Promised Land , Obama compared the reluctance of the White House administration to accept defeat to Joe Biden with the aftermath of the 2016 election that put Trump in office. Obama said he had called to congratulate Trump on the night of his victory and made immediate plans to help the new administration, having learnt from the assistance offered by his predecessor George W. Bush . Obama told the newspaper that a “peaceful transfer of power between parties is part of what makes a democracy work,” adding: “We didn’t delay for weeks on end pretending that it hadn’t happened.” “I arranged for all of my agencies and teams to prepare manuals for the transition,” he said. “One of those manuals was a playbook on how to deal with the possibility of a pandemic. It seems that they didn’t follow those guidelines that we provided.” More than two weeks on from the election, Trump has refused…