Odd Officials

[Mayor Puluapies] [Frederico the Goat]

Mayor Puluapies

Reported in The Odd Spot column in The Melbourne Age newspaper:

QUITO, ECUADOR-- A controversy is raging because a foot powder named Puluapies was elected mayor of a town of 4100.
A foot-deodorant firm decided during recent municipal election campaigns to use the slogan: "Vote for any candidate, but if your want well-being and hygiene, vote for Puluapies."
On election eve, it followed up its advertising with nationwide distribution of a leaflet the same size and color as the official ballot reading, "For Mayor: Honorable Puluapies."
When the votes were counted, the coastal town of Picoaza elected Puluapies by a clear majority, and dozens of other voters in outlying municipalites had marked their ballots for it.
--Front page, San Francisco Chronicle, July 18, 1967.

From The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener by Martin Gardner:

On July 18, 1967, The New Yorker reported that the four thousand good citizens of the coastal town of Picoaza, Ecuador, had elected a foot powder as mayor. A company making a toes deodorant had advertised: "Vote for any candidate, but if you want well-being and hygiene, vote Pulvapies". The town elected Pulvapies by a comfortable majority. How H. L. Mecken would have guffawed over this confirmation of his low opinion of mass voting. "I do not believe in democracy," Mecken once confessed, "but I am perfectly willing to admit it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind".
-- From the chapter Why I am not an Anarchist

Frederico the Goat

The mystery death of Frederico the goat, who was leading the opinion polls for the mayoral election in the Brazilian town of Pilar, is being investigated by police.

- Odd Spot, Melbourne Age, 17 Sept 1996.

	This page last changed: 10 Apr 2003
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