Guess who wants to run in Ukraine's elections

[mr friendly guy]

Darth Vader

Darth Vader Running For President of Ukraine: Ukrainian Internet Party Pays $225K Fee For Candidacy

The Ukrainian Internet Party (UIP) is playing what might be the most expensive political prank in their country’s history. The activist group and political party will run Darth Vader as their candidate for president in the country’s upcoming election in May.

The party paid the roughly $225,000 registration fee required to register a presidential candidate, and contend that Vader’s candidacy is no joke.

The UIP runs on a platform of digitizing the government of Ukraine, offering free computer and foreign-language courses to all Ukrainians and abolishing nearly all taxes to bring in foreign investments to the struggling country, now in the middle of a revolution and facing a military threat from Russia.

The party has been known to send Vader and his stormtroopers out on elaborate (and comical) political missions across the country.

“I am prepared to take responsibility for the fate of this country, if fellow citizens do me this high honor. I alone can make an empire out of a republic, to restore former glory, to return lost territories and pride for this country,” said Vader, after winning the inter-party primaries by a landslide. Watch his acceptance speech via Ruptly.

He also demands a space to park his spaceship.

The UIP was registered by the infamous Ukrainian cyber-criminal Dmitry Ivanovich Golubov in 2010. The party was abolished by a Ukrainian court in August 2012 for not having a regional office.

Fourteen presidential candidates have submitted documents to the Ukrainian Central Elections Commission (CEC) to run for president, and five are now formally registered as candidates, according to Interfax Ukraine.

Vader ran for a seat in Parliament as a write-in candidate in 2012 and got 3 percent of the vote, but Ukrainian law doesn’t recognize write-ins.

Watch some of the Sith Lord’s antics below:

In early 2013, Vader and a group of Stormtroopers attempted to enter the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice but was stopped at the door by a security guard. The police weren’t happy with the Sith Lord, who sought to hand the charter of the UIP to the Ukrainian Minister of Justice so that the abolished party would be taken seriously:

In November 2013, by decree of Emperor Palpatine, he was carried in a chair by Stormtroopers to the City Hall in Odessa and declared himself mayor of the city:

Apparently the UIP have been doing Star Wars theme politial stunts at least since last year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... 4LbQ18KBQs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... 9gVOV5DwfQ

Their latest press conference was captured by RT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9h4VA3bc-8

YT commentators translated his speech as "Our beliefs will be defended. We'll defend our beliefs with the strength of weapon. We won't let our land go. I'll lead our empire to magnificent glory."

I find it funny how people jump and criticise RT for propaganda, even though 1 minute of google and you will know this is a real party with a star wars fetish. Back to the story, I must say running Vader as a candidate was more funny than when Michael Moore ran a ficus plant as a candidate to make a political point.

[Rogue 9]

Seriously though, what?

[Sidewinder]

I can't help but compare the UIP to Voluntaryist and other the American anarcho-libertarians. Lofty ideals, but both means and ends are so divorced from reality, it's insane.

The UIP runs on a platform of digitizing the government of Ukraine

How will the Ukrainian government be digitized further? By allowing digital ballots to be submitted? How will they prevent voter fraud, i.e., a hacker adding a "0" or two to the number of votes a political party received? And who will pay for the acquisition, installation, and maintenance of the necessary computers?

offering free computer and foreign-language courses to all Ukrainians

A good goal, and likely vital to economic success in the 21st century, but again, who will pay for all this?

abolishing nearly all taxes to bring in foreign investments to the struggling country

This CANNOT be easily accomplished. To bring in foreign investments, you also have to convince investors their investments will be safe, that corrupt officials will not seize their assets without due process, that unions will not demand sudden and dramatic wage increases that will dramatically decrease their profit margins (something the US has significant problems with, as demonstrated in Volkswagen's dealings with United Auto Workers), and that acts of violence- from antigovernment protestors, foreign (cough! Russian!) invaders, earthquakes or other forces of nature- will not make these assets go up in smoke (possibly literally). And if you successfully attract foreign investors by abolishing taxes, your political rivals will then accuse you of sabotaging domestic industries, demanding you to raise taxes and tariffs to protect domestic industries, if not outright nationalizing (cough! SEIZING!) these industries.

now in the middle of a revolution and facing a military threat from Russia.

The first problem requires a political solution, one likely requiring police and other law enforcement agencies to carry out. The second requires parallel diplomatic and military efforts to make military intervention unappealing to Russia. At no point in the story are political, diplomatic, or military solutions even mentioned.