Julian Assange's Ultimate Publicity Stunt: Running For Australian Senate?

from the really,-now? dept

Even for supporters of Wikileaks and what it tried to achieve, Julian Assange is a polarizing figure -- often accused of letting his ego get in the way of good judgment. So, to be honest, it comes as little surprise that he's announced plans to run for the Australian Senate, even while he's still stuck in the UK, awaiting a ruling on being extradited to Sweden (with some concerns about eventually being extradited to the US as well). Wikileaks also announced plans to have someone else run against current Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who Assange feels has not done enough to support him. While there have been some questions about the legality of such a run, enough Australian legal experts seem to agree that he can probably do it. Whether or not he can actually get very much support is another question altogether. However, from an outside observer's standpoint, it's going to make the next Australian elections a lot more interesting.

Oh, and just for amusement's sake, one Australian publication mocked Wikileaks for misspelling Gilard's electorate, given its namesake's similarities to Assange himself:

Assange had an electoral learning process of his own which played out live on Twitter yesterday morning, with a first message from the Wikileaks feed announcing only that the organisation would be “fielding a candidate to run against Julia Gillard in her home seat of Laylor (sic)”. Very shortly afterwards, a second tweet declared: “We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run.” The spelling error in the initial tweet betrayed a curious ignorance of Australian history, given that the electorate in question is named after Peter Lalor, who led the famous Eureka Rebellion at the Ballarat goldfields in 1854. One would have thought that Lalor, a radical activist who saw his efforts crudely suppressed by the authorities before going on to a distinguished career as a parliamentarian, might have been better known to Assange – if not to the extent that he would have spelt his name correctly, then at least so far that he might have misspelled it in a phonetically correct manner (“Lawlor”). But I digress.

I would be pretty surprised if this candidacy (or either candidacy if they really do raise two candidates) actually goes anywhere, but that won't make it any less entertaining to follow.

Filed Under: australia, julia gillard, julian assange, parliament, politics, senate
Companies: wikileaks