Serbia's Stephen Colbert runs a satire candidate---and wins.
Here are excerpts from a great article about Stevan Vlajic, the creator of a spoof political character, Ljubisa Beli, that lampoons Serbias corrupt political system. He ran the character as a spoof, but then was shocked to win seats on a local council. He then took the opportunity to do some good, by advertising government job openings that local politicians had kept secret to hand out to their cronies.
...Beli, played by Luka Maksimovic, a 25-year-old friend of Vlajics, is a caricature of the very worst of Serbian politicians, complete with fake university diploma, wealth that is unaccounted for and a tendency to make empty populist promises purely to win votes.
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In acknowledgement of the widespread corruption in Serbia, Beli wears a white suit to underline his purity and commitment to the truth and transparency. To the delight of disaffected Serbian voters, Beli, which means white in Serbian, even promises to lie transparently.
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Vlajic, 28, and friends initially set out to poke fun at the political establishment by putting up Beli and a group of spoof supporters for election in Mladenovac a once thriving industrial town in central Serbia that lies 50 kilometres from the centre of Belgrade. We want to create a strong opposition
to show people that politics needs to be responsible and transparent.
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While acknowledging municipalities do not wield much power in Serbia, the group is nevertheless attempting to effect change. They have begun distributing local government recruitment notices via social media to tackle nepotism and cronyism and also raise public awareness of state-sector employment opportunities.
We send over our social media channels information about current competitions and people have told us that without us, theyd never know that competitions are open for serious, management positions, says Vlajic.
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/political-satirists-eye-belgrade-local-elections-07-22-2016