Former United States President Barack Obama on Thursday denounced the “politics of division” the country is witnessing at present, commenting on the state of affairs for the first time in nine months, The Guardian reported.

“You’ll notice I haven’t been commenting a lot on politics lately,” he said. “But here’s one thing I know: if you have to win a campaign by dividing people, you’re not going to be able to govern them. You won’t be able to unite them later if that’s how you start.”

Without mentioning President Donald Trump, he said the present policies reflected a tendency to “demonise people who have different ideas” and urged people to bring back hope.

“The question now, at a time when our politics seem so divided and so angry and so nasty, is whether we can recapture that spirit, whether we support and embrace somebody who wants to bring people together,” Obama said.

He made the statements while campaigning for Democrat Ralph Northam, who is running for the gubernatorial election in Virginia. “Instead of our politics reflecting our values, we’ve got politics infecting our communities,” Obama said.