Kiefer Sutherland has denied claims that the presence of a black president in the drama series ‘24′ helped Barrack Obama win the recent American presidential election.

Kiefer commented: “You don’t honestly believe that our show helped get the first African American into the White House do you?” he asked Newsbeat.

“All we simply did is look to the future.”

In an interview with TV Guide magazine in January 2008, Dennis Haysbert who played the presidential charatcter said: “As far as the public is concerned, it did open up their minds and their hearts a little bit to the notion that if the right man came along that a black man could be president of the United States.”

But Sutherland told the BBC that it was time for a change and would have happened anyway.

“You have a huge African American population and it was just a matter of time before they were represented politically by a president.”

He added: “We have a female president in season seven. You have a 52% population of women and we can clearly see it is just a matter of time before we have a female president.”