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The 500-vote sponsorship was designed to weed out frivolous
candidates from the final stages of the French presidential election
but has come under increasing criticism and has been called both
corrupt and arcane, barring many legitimate voices from being heard.
Without any opposition from the dogs, Jacques Chirac won in a
landslide victory on May 5, drawing over 82% of the votes. But
it has been pointed out that those votes were not so much pro-Chirac
as they were anti-Le Pen, Chirac's ultra-right opposition.
"Vote for the crook, not the fascist," was a popular
rallying cry.
Maybe the dogs will have better luck next time. One
cannot help but wonder what sort of efficiency and patriotism a dog
would instill in a lackluster government.
Maybe Shakespeare had the right idea 400 years ago:
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King
Lear: Thou
hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?
Gloucester:
Ay, sir.
King
Lear: And the
creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold
the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.
William
Shakespeare
King Lear, Act iv, sc. 6
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...But Monkey is Elected Mayor
HARTLEPOOL (UK) — The
Hartlepool mayoral election may not have gone to the dogs, but it
certainly went to the monkey.
 H'Angus the
Monkey, the town's football team mascot, is the new Mayor of Hartlepool.
Campaigning with the slogan "free bananas for schoolchildren",
Stuart Drummond (the man who wears the monkey suit) was declared the
winner last week with a total of 7,395 votes to his opponent Leo Gillen's
6,792.
One citizen, Mick Baines, applauded the results, saying: "Well
done Hartlepool for seeing through all the monkey business that 'serious'
politicians get up to."
Labour ministers say the result may mean a rethink about the mayoral
system, reports This
is Hartlepool. But meanwhile, H'Angus will enthusiastically
swing into his new £53,000-a-year job ($78,000 US).
The town's monkey-mania comes from a famous (but hopefully untrue) legend
that during the Napoleonic wars (1800-1815), a monkey who was the sole
survivor of a shipwreck was confused for a French spy, tried and hung by
local townsfolk (more
here).
They still sing:
In
former times, mid war an' strife,
The French invasion threatened life,
An' all was armed to the knife,
The Fishermen hung the Monkey O!
Good luck in office, H'Angus!
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