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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Asia Pacific World Search Search: German joker bucks up dreary election campaign AFP - Wednesday, August 19 BERLIN (AFP) - - With the Obama-inspired slogan "Yes Weekend" and a pledge to make a bunny the national symbol, a mock candidate for German chancellor has injected some much-needed humour into a drab election campaign. ADVERTISEMENT Decked out in a grubby brown mac, grey wig and sporting horrendous buckteeth, the grotesque Horst Schlaemmer (alias comedian Hape Kerkeling) has become Germany's most popular person since launching his joke "bid" for power. Like British comedian Sasha Baron Cohen's alter-egos, the outrageous gay Austrian fashionista Bruno, or fictitious Kazakh journalist Borat before him, Schlaemmer has shot to fame by mocking the world around him, in this case the usually staid environment of German politics. Describing his "Horst Schlaemmer Party" (HSP) as "conservative, liberal, left-wing and a bit ecological", he has clearly struck a chord with Germany's voters with "manifesto" pledges of state-funded sunbeds and cosmetic surgery. Turned off by the uninspiring campaigns waged by leading candidates Angela Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, nearly one in five Germans said they would consider voting for him if his name were ever to appear on the ballot paper, according to a recent poll for Stern magazine. And belying their humourless reputation, Germans recently voted the goofy character the country's most popular person, ahead of former tennis star Steffi Graf, the Pope and football supremo Franz Beckenbauer. As for his "politics", Schlaemmer is scrupulously honest but not exactly politically correct. He told a press conference in early August: "Politically speaking, I find homosexuality ok. Privately, I find it disgusting" -- all the more ironic as Kerkeling is gay in real life. But he certainly has a politician's instinct for grabbing the limelight. When Michael Schumacher announced he was shelving his planned Formula One comeback, Schlaemmer immediately offered him alternative employment: "Schumi can drive me to the premiere of my film," he said in a press release. The film, "Isch kandidiere!" (I'm a candidate!) opens on Thursday and is set to be a huge success if the premiere is anything to go by, with hundreds of fans crammed into Berlin's Potsdamer Platz to catch a glimpse of the unprepossessing star. He appears relatively unconcerned about the main political issues of the day. "The financial crisis? I tell you this now, honestly, I have no solution"; "Swine flu? I'm against it!" But the anti-politician, who, like "Ali G", another Sasha Baron Cohen invention, conducts mock debates with real-life political figures in the film, has attracted the kind of media coverage other politicians can only dream of. Over 200 journalists packed out his first press conference where he presented his party's "manifesto" and rolling news channels N24 and NTV both carried it live for almost two hours. Among his more radical suggestions was a proposal to scrap federal Germany's famous Eagle symbol and replace it with a bunny rabbit. In contrast, the day before, both channels had cut away from Steinmeier presenting his real-life manifesto -- a plan to create four million jobs by 2020. And Steinmeier might just be envious of Schlaemmer's poll ratings, with a recent survey suggesting only nine percent of Germans think the Social Democrat front-man will be the next chancellor. However, Schlaemmer is not the only one spicing up Germany's dull election campaign. Another mock party, called simply "The Party", is fighting a ruling banning it from the September 27 poll with its policy of rebuilding the Berlin Wall and expelling all the country's pensioners to the ex-communist east. And parliamentary candidate Vera Lengsfeld, from Merkel's CDU party, caused a stir after mocking up a campaign poster showing her and the chancellor wearing extremely low-cut dresses that left very little to the imagination. Media and political commentators put the success of the satirists down to the lacklustre campaigns run by the main parties, as well as a lack of genuine political confrontation due to the "grand coalition" governing Germany. "Schlaemmer is an alternative to your usual grey-suited politician in Germany," Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin, told AFP. "I can imagine people are fed up with politics and politicians ... the boring campaign makes Schlaemmer more interesting," he added. Germany's influential news weekly Der Spiegel commented in a recent online editorial: "There is an election battle and no one wants to participate. If it weren't for Horst Schlaemmer and Vera Lengsfeld's breast campaign, most people wouldn't even notice." Neugebauer said many people who said they could vote for Schlaemmer were perhaps registering a "protest vote" against mainstream politics. And he concluded with a point that German politicians of all parties -- real and not-so-serious -- might agree with. "Better Schlaemmer than the fascists." Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Sign in to recommend this article » 0 users recommend Related Articles: Entertainment & Lifestyle Label hunts hackers who stole Lewis/Timberlake songReuters - 1 hour 46 minutes ago UK film board stops sale of Japanese horror movieAP - Thursday, August 20 France's Annaud to direct 'Wolf Totem' movieAP - Thursday, August 20 German joker bucks up dreary election campaignAFP - Wednesday, August 19 Mexico's Inarritu to head Tokyo festival juryAP - Wednesday, August 19

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