Xnumx comedians who went into big politics

31 March in Ukraine took place first round of presidential elections. The turnout was 63%, which is more than in the 2014 elections - 59,5%.

Photo: Instagram / zelenskiy_official

According to the results of counting 80% of the protocols, comedian Vladimir Zelensky has 30,4% of the votes, the current President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko - 16,03%, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko - 13,24%.

BBC News Ukraine remembers the stories of comedians from other countries who participated in elections and even became leaders of states.

Kolyush (1944-1986), French comedian

In the fall of 1980, the famous French comedian Kolyush announced his candidacy for the presidential election.

For traditional French politicians, both on the right and on the left, this message at first seemed like another joke. However, as a bolt from the blue, at the end of the year there were results of a poll, according to which at least 11% of the French were ready to vote for Kolyusha. The one who seemed to be an ordinary clown turned into a dangerous opponent for several leading politicians of the country at once.

At that time, Michel Colucci, better known for his stage name Colus, was already popular in France thanks to his comic plays and sketches mocking politicians like the actor Théâtre du Gymnase and co-founder of the cult theater Café de la Gare in Paris, where such future movie stars performed like Miu Miu and Depardieu.

With each passing year, Kolyush is becoming more and more acute in the language, ridiculing the realities of contemporary France, which, after 30 years of economic growth, for the first time experienced a decline in the economy.

“The month of the year when a politician says less nonsense is February, since it has 28 days,” is one of Coluche’s jokes about French politics.

“Thanks to nuclear weapons, although we were born by mistake, we will probably die because of a mistake,” he comments on the nuclear race.

“I would like to encourage the peoples of the world who are dying of hunger: here we eat for you,” he criticizes consumerism.

At the beginning of 1980, because of the mockery of French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1981), two radio stations stopped working with Colesh. In fact, the comedian is not the only one who relishes scandalous information about diamonds donated to the president by self-proclaimed emperor of Central Africa Bocassa. It is also about Bocassus himself, who was accused of cannibalism and the killing of schoolchildren, and whom the French military in 1979 was removed from power.

It was then that Coluche’s friend Romain Goupil, one of the active participants in the revolt of French youth in 1968, jokingly invites him to nominate himself for president. Several months will pass, and the artist will gather his closest friends to write a manifesto for the presidential candidate and create a “headquarters”.

October 30 he holds a press conference at which he announces to journalists about the nomination of his candidacy.

“They take us for idiots, so let’s vote for the idiot,” says the comedian.

“Now France is divided in two, I will fold it in four!” Coluche promises.

Jokes become his main weapon in the campaign.

“One for all, and everyone is a scoundrel,” he characterizes the world of politicians.

“Debra is an empty place. He wanted to give his body to science, but science didn’t want to,” Coluche laughs at one of the presidential candidates.

“Ministers are like holes in Swiss cheese. The more cheese, the more holes. And then the more holes, the less Swiss cheese,” he ridicules bureaucracy.

At first, most traditional politicians do not pay attention to the clown, who, in their opinion, is thinking of shocking.

Interior Minister Jeanne Bonnet had a different opinion. In a commentary to the documentary “Coluche the Clown Enemy of the State” (2011), Giscard d’Estaing’s advisor Bernard Rideau will tell you that Bonnet was determined to achieve the re-election of the president at any cost, and in Coluche’s nomination he saw discrediting the presidential elections as such and a possible conspiracy of the left.

On November 25, the police take the artist under surveillance, and a special group in its intelligence unit Renseignements généraux is tasked with collecting information about him. 30 years ago, the ex-director of this unit, Yves Bertrand, admitted the existence of a special group that was “a state within a police state.”

The leading politicians of the country finally disappear a sense of humor when in the Journal du Dimanche in December 1980 of the year they publish a poll, where Kolyush’s rating reaches 16%. At the end of the year, there is a poll of the respected social service Ifop, in which Kolyush reaches 11% compared to 32% president d'Estaing, 18% socialist Mitterrand and 14,5% communist Marché.

The socialists and communists, whom the minister Bonne suspects of supporting Kolyush, do not really want to see the comedian as a candidate, because he can distract the leftist voter. The advisers of the socialist leader, Francois Miterran, are concerned that because of Kolyush, he may lose votes and not get into the second round.

Many years later, Communist spokesman Pierre Zhukan admits that the Communist Party conducted an internal survey. And it turned out that among the workers, Kolyush was more popular than the Communist leader Georges Marchais.

The main communist was not a fan of Kolyush, and there were reasons for this. “The Communist Party is the party of workers: that’s where the living fossils are, and some of them are completely crazy,” this could be heard from the comedian.

Kohlusha and emissaries from the Socialist Party and the current President d'Estaing come to participate in the elections with a request to refuse to participate in the elections. He refuses them.

At the same time, a campaign of threats and denunciations is being launched against the candidate. Letters are received from the far-right organization “Honor of the Police” with death threats. On November 27, comedian director Gorlan is found with two bullets in the back of his head.

It will take a long time until the police believe that the murder was due to amorous affairs.

Express magazine publishes an article “The Whole Truth About Kolyusha”, where he tells how he exceeded the speed limit in 1979, swore at the police, and paid a huge fine. And the Minute publication somehow obtains data from a police file, which states that in 1963, Coluche’s acquaintances stole shaving accessories from a store and shared them with the guy, causing damage of 1220 francs.

Such disclosures do not change Kolusch’s desire to run; his support is claimed by the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

But at the same time, before the comedian, the doors of the TV channels and the radio are closed, explaining that he is conducting a political agitation, and therefore cannot be considered a humorist.

“If the Gestapo had the means to make you speak, modern politicians have the means to silence you,” says the comedian.

On March 16, Coluche announces that he is withdrawing from the race. “I prefer the withdrawal of my candidacy, because it has begun to bother me,” he tells reporters and goes on a hunger strike demanding the return of his programs to air.

Later he called for a vote for Mitterrand, and he won his election victory in May at the headquarters of the socialists.

For Kolyusha, the failure of the idea of ​​participating in the elections was not a tragedy, he considered divorcing his wife soon after the elections a much greater loss.

Under President Mitterrand (1981-1995), radio and television reopened the doors for the comedian. In 1984, he received the Cesar Film Award for Best Actor in the film “Ciao, Clown!”, where he plays a policeman and deals with a gang of drug mafia.

In September 1985, the comedian initiated the creation of the main project of his life - the organization Les Restos du cœur ("Restaurants of the Heart" or "Restaurants of Love"), which was supposed to provide food to the poor and homeless. Together with friends - composer Jean-Jacques Goldman, actor Yves Montand, football player Michel Platini, journalist Michel Drucker and actresses Nathalie Bai and Catherine Deneuve, he records song-anthem restaurants, which becomes a hit and brings money to start the organization.

Kolyush adored motorcycles and fast driving. In 1985, he even set a Guinness record on a Yamaha 750cc motorcycle, driving a distance of 1 km at a speed of 252 km / h.

In June, 1986, during one of his journeys in the south of France, Kolyusha's motorcycle crashed into a truck at a turn. Thousands of people attended the funeral of the actor in Paris.

Subsequently, through the efforts of friends and Coluche’s ex-wife Veronica, tens of thousands of volunteers, “Restaurants of Love” turned into one of the most powerful humanitarian organizations in France, where tens of thousands of volunteers work.

In this network, there are now more than 2000 institutions, where they not only provide food assistance, but also help poor families with job-seeking children, provide psychological support and take homeless people. Fundraising concerts are held annually in support of the organization, at which Monica Bellucci, Celine Dion, Alain Delon, Emmanuel Bear, Alize, Patricia Kaas, ZAZ, Zinedine Zidane and many others took part in different times.

In the name of Kolyusha, schools and streets in France were named, and in Paris a monument was erected to him in the form of his famous overalls.

And the speculations around that election campaign and the death of Kolyusha have not abated until now. In 2005, ex-adviser to Mitterrand, Jacques Attali, wrote in his book that he was behind the nomination of Kolyush. And ex-president Giscard d'Estaing in 2008 year in an interview Europe 1 in 2008 claimed that the comedian met with him on the eve of the elections and supported him: “He was not at all for François Mitterrand.” But these statements, as well as messages from some of the artist’s fans on social networks that he was actually killed, do not have any confirmation by facts.

Jimmy Morales, President of Guatemala since 2016

Jimmy Morales was born in 1969 year in a poor family of evangelical Christians in one of the poorest countries in Central America. Early lost his father, as a child engaged in the sale of bananas.

He received a degree in business administration and international relations, but he and his older brother Samuel plunged into the film industry. For 15 years they created the comedy TV program Moralejas, where they played, in particular, the rude and not-far-reaching peasant guys Nito and Neto.

In 2011, Morales decided to start a political career. He first joined the Christian Democrats, and then the Front National Convergence party, which was created by the ultra-right military from the Guatemalan Military Veterans Association, who fought left insurgents during the civil war of 1960-1996 in the country. Later, the politician denied that he was defending the interests of this organization, some of whose members were suspected of involvement in the Mayan genocide in the 1980s.

In the 2015 year, at the height of the political crisis in the country, Morales announced his candidacy for the presidential election. Then the Prosecutor General of Guatemala Telma Aldana and Ivan Velasquez, a representative of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, formed by bilateral agreement with the United Nations, accused the current President of the country Otto Perez Molini and Vice President Roxana Baldetti to participate in customs corruption scheme. Both were on the dock.

Morales during the campaign promised to fight corruption and crime, and focused on things that do not belong to the political elite.

“Not corrupt, not a thief” was his slogan. Among the promises was the provision of a smartphone to every student. Opponents joked that the candidate simply wanted children to watch TV series with his participation.

The politician gathered crowds of admirers across the country, communicated easily with ordinary people, differed in wit against the background of other candidates.

“How are you, Guatemala?” he addressed the crowd.

And Morales used nationalistic slogans, in particular, he noted that Guatemala could still regain neighboring Belize, which was a British colony for a long time, and which Guatemala considered 1821 to 1991 a year to be illegally seized by the territory. In Belize, even after gaining independence, thousands of British soldiers remained for some time to defend against the possible attack of Guatemala.

As a result, in the elections in October 2015, the politician received 67,4% of votes. A few months later, his image of the anti-corruption began to deteriorate due to a number of scandals.

In January 2017, his brother and presidential adviser Samuel and son José were arrested in a corruption case. Tens of thousands of people came out to protest and demanded the resignation of the president.

The Prosecutor of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, Ivan Velasquez, and the Prosecutor General Telma Aldan in August 2017 appealed to the Supreme Court and Parliament to lift immunity from the president in order to initiate his prosecution on suspicion of illegal party financing.

The president issued an order declaring Velasquez, a Colombian citizen, persona non grata. The Foreign Minister refused to sign this order, for which he was dismissed, and the Constitutional Court of Guatemala declared it unconstitutional.

In September 2017, the Guatemalan parliament refused to lift immunity from the president. A few days later a new scandal broke out.

Defense Secretary Williams Mancilla was accused of paying the president $7300 in monthly bonuses. This money was included in the documentation as a “bonus for extreme responsibility.” Mansilla resigned, and a few months later he was arrested.

Despite the protests, Jimmy Morales continued his fight against the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, in September 2018 announced that it would stop working in Guatemala and secured a decision by the National Security Council to ban Ivan Velasquez from returning to the country.

In late 2018, Thelma Aldana and Ivan Velasquez were awarded The Right Livelihood Award for exposing abuses of power, prosecuting corruption, and restoring people's trust in law enforcement institutions.

This prize is considered the “Nobel” for human rights activists and anti-corruption activists. Thelma Aldana is expected to announce her candidacy in Guatemala's presidential elections this year.

Ion Gnarr, Mayor of the Icelandic capital Reykjavik (2010-2014)

Jon Gunnar Kristinson, who changed his name as an adult to Jon Gnarr, had a difficult childhood. His father was a Stalinist policeman, and he taught the ideology to the child. He was considered “mentally retarded,” and the guy spent a lot of time in the hospital until doctors determined that he had dyslexia. Gnarr learned to read and write only in adolescence.

The guy’s reaction to an outsider position at school and his father’s ideology was an enthusiasm for anarchism and bass guitar in a punk band. The music gave him many friends, including friendship with the singer Bjork, and a meeting with his future wife, Johanna, with whom Gnarr is raising five children.

He did not enter university, he worked at a car factory, he was a taxi driver for four years. In 27 years, Gnarr leaves the music and begins a career of a humorist. He works in popular TV programs, starred in comedy TV shows, three times receives the Edd Award as the best actor of the year.

Probably, this career would have continued without significant changes, if not for the economic crisis of 2008, of which Iceland was one of the first victims.

In the autumn of 2008, three leading banks, where many citizens and companies in the UK and the Netherlands held deposits, burst, and the state had to nationalize them in order to save the financial system.

So Iceland in a matter of days turned into a debtor country, whose foreign debt exceeded the country's GDP by several times. Thousands of Icelanders were furious. Reykjavik swept the most massive protests in the history of Iceland, clashed with the police, the government resigned.

Against the backdrop of falling trust in traditional politicians in society, Jon Gnarr founded the “Better Party” in November 2009, which promises to make the lives of Icelanders brighter and more fun, laughs at the political elite and promises to bring to justice those responsible for the financial collapse.

“We promise to stop corruption, we will do this by participating in it openly. Cancellation of all debts: we listen to the people and do as they want, because the people know what is best for them,” the party program said.

The party promised free air travel for women and cars for farmers, the creation of Disneyland at Reykjavik airport, the delivery of a polar bear to the zoo, free pools and towels and the fight against drug use in parliament.

The party, which was formed by former actors, musicians, punks and recent university graduates, took part in the elections to the city council of Reykjavik in the spring of 2010. In a video made to the music from The Best Tina Turner's song, Gnarr addressed voters:

“It is time for everyone to look deep into their hearts. Do you want a bright future with a better match? Or do you want a destroyed Reykjavik?”

Although traditional politicians called for the city not to be “in the hands of clowns,” the “Best Party” received 34% of the vote and formed a governing coalition with the Social Democrats, who had to watch Gnarr’s favorite police series “The Wire” to do this.

After the inauguration, the new mayor jokingly suggested renaming the city in his honor to Gnarrenburg. He took part in a gay pride in a woman's dress in the guise of drag queen, held a fat cat contest, beat pots with the Chinese delegation, accusing Beijing of violating human rights, and later blamed Russia for the same, supporting Pussy Riot.

However, the mayor’s office of Gnarr was not catastrophic, as opponents predicted, although the support of more experienced Social Democrats played a big role. For four years, the city has solved problems with the power company that supplies water and light, conducted school reform, made a lot of bike paths, introduced support for art projects, and reached the tourist boom.

When in the autumn of 2013, the Best Party's rating reached 38%, Gnarr announced its dissolution and refusal to run for a second term. Such a step contrasted with the actions of traditional politicians who are trying by all means to re-elect and cling to power.

After his resignation, Gnarr published the book “How I became the mayor of the largest city in Iceland and changed the world.”

He refused to participate in the presidential election in 2016, but returned to politics in 2017, joining the Social Democrats.

Lenin Moreno, President of Ecuador since 2017

One of the most controversial politicians in Latin America, Lenin Bolter Moreno was born in 1953 year. His father was a teacher and was fond of the leader of the Bolsheviks, and also greatly respected the French philosopher Voltaire, which explains his strange double name, which the officials could not correctly write in the act of birth.

In his youth, Lenin Moreno participated in various left-wing movements, made a career in business, and then transferred to the civil service, where he was engaged in the development of tourism.

In the year 1998, when he served as director of the National Federation of Tourist Chambers of Ecuador, an event occurred that changed his life. During the robbery, one of the thieves shot Lenin Moreno in the back, which resulted in paralysis.

Lenin Moreno decided that the best thing that could help in such a situation was humor.

He creates the Eventa Foundation, which promotes humor and laughter therapy, writes the books “The Best Jokes in the World”, “Theory and Practice of Humor”, “Laugh, Don’t Get Sick”, “Famous Humor” and promotes his ideas throughout the country as the national director for disability under the Ministry of Health.

The wheelchair did not prevent Lenin Moreno’s political career, just as many years ago did not prevent Franklin Roosevelt from becoming the president of the United States. In 2006, he joined the team of leftist politician Rafael Correa, and was elected vice president of the country.

Correa, who led the country from 2007 to 2017, announced the “Civil Revolution” - a project to rebuild the state in a socialist manner, completely changed Ecuador’s foreign policy - the country broke off defense cooperation with the United States, became an ally of Hugo Chavez, and joined the ALBA bloc, where Venezuela was the leader .

Lenin Moreno supported this policy. As vice president, he put a lot of effort into creating a barrier-free environment for people with disabilities in the country, for which he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 2012.

In 2013, he left the post of vice-president and became special envoy of the UN Secretary General on disability and accessibility issues.

In the fall of 2016, he returns to Ecuador to become a presidential candidate with the support of Correa. In the elections next year, he won the second round with 51% of votes.

Within a few months, he had fully developed the country's political course and became the enemy of the ex-president. He removes the vice-president, seeks control over the leading party, from which supporters of Correa were forced to leave, and dismisses the officials close to him. In June, 2018, the country restored cooperation with the United States in the field of defense and intelligence, and announced its intention to buy American weapons, and in August, 2018, withdrew from the ALBA association created by Venezuela.

In July, the Ecuadorian court on charges of kidnapping 2018, issued an arrest warrant for Correa, who now lives in Brussels and has his own TV show on the Russian Today channel.

And Julian Assange, who has lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 and enjoyed Correa’s patronage, had his Internet turned off in March 2018 for “interfering in the affairs of other countries.” In October, they decided to partially return access, but obliged the WikiLeaks founder to monitor the “nutrition, welfare and hygiene” of his cat and clean his bathroom.

In the interview DW Lenin Moreno replied that the United States and other countries were putting pressure on Ecuador to evict Assange from the embassy.

“There are two types of freedom. Responsible freedom and cave freedom, in which one believes that he can do what he wants, as he pleases. This is not freedom. Freedom must be exercised with great responsibility,” he noted, emphasizing the requirement for Assange not to interfere in the politics of other countries, having asylum status in Ecuador.

Marjan Čarec, Prime Minister of Slovenia since 2018,

41-year-old Marjan Sarec is a graduate of the Ljubljana Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television. In the early 2000s, he began his career as a journalist on the RTV Slovenija television channel, and participated in comedy radio and television shows, during which he imitated leading Slovenian politicians, Fidel Castro and Osama bin Laden.

Photo: YouTube video frame / euronews

His greatest fame was brought to him by sketches where he played the peasant Ivan Serpentinshek, who was always dissatisfied with his life. This fictional character always tells people what he thinks, especially when he is dissatisfied with something, hates bureaucracy, respects only practical work, and not philosophers or politicians. Nobody understands his jokes, but this is not the main thing, because he himself laughs at them.

Sharets considered the character of Serpentishek to be his greatest success and noted that he was based on the features of the real people he met. He was popular with viewers both in the village and in the city.

In the 2010 year, Serventishek remained in the past, and Marjan Čarec took a step into the political future to prove that he could be not only a successful comedian, but also a serious politician.

He won the election for mayor of the small town of Kamnik. He left his acting profession and comedy roles, and did not make absurd promises. In 2014, he was re-elected mayor with 64% of the vote as the head of his own party, the Šarec List.

2017 Sharets nominated his candidacy for the presidential election and immediately found himself among the favorites of the race. His campaign was accompanied by criticism of the country's political elite, calls for politicians to listen to voters and take practical steps.

Sharets proposed reducing the number of officials, balancing the budget and reducing state debt. increase the powers of local authorities, conduct electoral reform that would create better conditions for independent candidates, legalize marijuana, and oppose the privatization of strategic and infrastructure companies. With 47% of votes, he lost to the current president, Borut Pahor, in the second round.

In June, the 2018 of the Year list of Sharets received the second place in the parliamentary elections with an 12,7% of votes, and after a long coalition, the politician headed the government of the country.

What explains his success? Although Slovenia is the most developed and wealthy country among the states formed from the ruins of Yugoslavia - for a long time it was even called the “Switzerland of the Balkans” - the last decade in Slovenia was marked by a decline in the economy as a result of the 2008/9 crisis, political instability, loss of trust in politicians and significant growth government debt.

Sarec is a new face against the background of such Slovenian heavyweights as President Pahor, who has been in politics for 30 years, or the leader of the conservatives, ex-Prime Minister Janez Jansa, an ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who shares the rhetoric of Donald Trump. Janša has also been in the political arena for 30 years, fought for the country’s independence in the early 90s, headed the government several times and even served several months as a sentence in a corruption case, but was completely acquitted.

So it was not difficult for Sharets to collect the votes of young people, the protest electorate and voters dissatisfied with the economic situation.

Beppe Grillo, founder of the Italian Five Star Movement

70-year-old Italian comedian Beppe Grillo created a movement that changed Italian politics.

Photos: YouTube video frame

As a young man, Beppe Grillo dropped out of university and worked as a sales representative, but dreamed of becoming an actor. While listening to a cabaret in Milan in 1977, he was noticed by well-known producer Pippo Baudo, who invited him to participate in comedy TV shows.

In 1986, during a show on state television, Grillo joked about the then Socialist prime minister and friend of Silvio Berlusconi, Bettino Craxi. The joke was about Craxi's assistant, who went to communist China and called to report to Craxi: "I feel strange, there are a billion of them here, and all are socialists," said Craxi's assistant. “Yes, but what?” says the prime minister. “It’s just that if they are all socialists, then who are they stealing from? - asked the assistant.

After this, the doors of state television were closed to him for some time. A few years later, as part of Operation Clean Hands, Bettino Craxi was accused of corruption. He fled to Tunisia, where he hid until his death, and in his homeland he was sentenced to more than 9 years in prison in absentia.

Despite the popularity of Grillo's programs, for his predilections for mocking politicians, they did not stay long on television. In 1998-2001, he appeared on TELE + on New Year's Eve, immediately after the traditional New Year's speech by the President of Italy and parodied it. The program was closed after the change of ownership of the channel.

In 2005, the comedian creates a blog that uses campaigning for his beliefs, discusses environmental issues and political corruption, and begins to gather his fans through the social network Meetup to discuss the current problems of the country. Meetings were held in different cities, and local organizations were gradually created that advocated the active involvement of citizens in decision-making. In 2007, supporters of Beppe Grillo began to collect signatures for holding a referendum on banning to run for parliament previously convicted and limiting the term of office for two terms.

In October 2009, against the backdrop of the economic crisis, Beppe Grillo, together with his friend, businessman Gianroberto Casaleggio, created the Five Star Movement. The program of this political force was a mixture of left and right slogans - against immigration, for environmental protection, for a guaranteed minimum income. But most experts agreed that the party is populist and opposes traditional political elites.

“The mafia never strangled its client, it accepted pizzo (compensation, tribute - Ed.) at 10%. Here we have a mafia that has different standards and strangles its victims,” Grillo says.

“Countries that pollute the environment, particularly ours, deserve a new Nuremberg Tribunal. The judge, who is also the executioner, already exists. This is planet Earth,” he criticizes the environmental situation on the planet.

One of the ideologists of the “Five Stars” was considered Nobel laureate, playwright Dario Fo (1926-2006), known for criticizing banks, big business, in particular former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his supporters. In the play “The Two-Headed Anomaly,” he describes the aftermath of a fictional terrorist attack on Berlusconi’s villa, as a result of which his friend Vladimir Putin is killed, and neurosurgeons insert the right hemisphere of the Russian leader’s brain into the skull of the seriously wounded Berlusconi in order to save him, and thus create a new person.

In a few years, the five-star movement will cause a real earthquake in Italian politics, using the criticism of the Italian political system, the European Union, the slogans of holding a referendum on leaving the eurozone. In the 2013 parliamentary elections, the party won first place with 25,6% of votes, and although the government was formed by the center-left, supporters of Grillo received an excellent platform to promote their ideas.

Beppe Grillo himself did not run for parliament because he had a conviction for manslaughter - in 1981 he was responsible for an accident in which three people died. His old criminal record contradicted the position of the Five Star Movement against electing people with previous convictions to parliament. In addition, the politician lost libel cases several times and was forced to pay tens of thousands of euros in compensation.

At the same time, the party's hostility toward Putin over LGBT issues in Russia will change as a result of his policies. “Putin is someone who says smart things about foreign policy,” Grillo will say.

Despite the lack of a seat in parliament, he remained the leader of the party until 2017, and easily lost the position in favor of the young politician Luigi di Mayo.

In the March 2018 parliamentary elections, the Movement won first place with an 32,7% vote, Luigi di Mayo formed a government with the ultra-right League of the North Salvini and became deputy prime minister. Coalition partners have made the lifting of sanctions on Russia into the government program, although this promise has not been fulfilled so far.

Luka Maksimovich, Serbian Presidential Candidate (2017)

In 2017, comedian Luka Maksimovich was the main surprise at the presidential elections in Serbia.

Photos: YouTube video frame

He started making humorous videos and posting them on YouTube while still in school. During his student years, he directed the humorous series “Gay Couple from Šumadija,” in which he played a gay man from a Serbian town, which was a challenge in a country where sentiments against sexual minorities are widespread.

Later, Maksimovic took the stage name Ljubisa Preletacevic Bely. The word “preletac” in Serbian means a weathervane politician who thinks about his own benefit.

In the spring of 2016, with friends in the city of Mladenovac, he created the satirical part “Have you tried sarma (that’s the name of the dish of Balkan cuisine. - Ed.).” And he participated in the elections to the city council at the head of the list “White is simply wonderful.”

Maksimovic's supporters promised "the most terrible campaign in history, with a series of false promises, megalomania and the revival of useless hope," as well as the opening of a department of euthanasia for pensioners at the local hospital in order to preserve the country's budget. The party received second place in the elections with 21% of the vote and 13 of the 55 seats in the city council.

During the presidential election in April, 2017, a white suit resembling Borat’s clothes, pointed shoes, a hipster beard and a samurai hairstyle made up the image of the comic. Supporters of the candidate removed video clip in retrostyle 90-x, where Maksimovich appears in the image of a kung fu fighter who overcomes villains.

Although Luka Maksimovich went to the elections with a program of “complete banalization of public life and the political system,” he gathered protest voters and received 326 votes - 000% of the total.

The following year, Maksimovich tried to take part in the municipal elections in Belgrade. The election commission did not want to register Preletachevich’s list due to the presence of a fictitious person’s name, so a relative of the comedian changed his name to Lubish Preleachevich Bely and agreed to use it in the title.

The speed with which the bureaucratic procedure was conducted aroused the suspicions of opponents from the Serbian opposition, who accused Maksimovic of secret collaboration with the ruling party. He denied cooperation with the authorities. The comic list received an 2,3% vote and not a single seat in the municipal council.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Profile: Vladimir Zelensky - actor, showman, presidential candidate of Ukraine

'Brain drain': why millions of skilled Ukrainians are leaving the country

Who is such a comedian Zelensky and how he became a favorite of the presidential elections in Ukraine

Comedian Zelensky made Poroshenko instead of New Year's Eve and announced that he was going to the presidency. VIDEO

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.