Support
The most obvious reason for a person to support a joke party is simply that they enjoy the humour. There are, however, other arguments advanced in favour of joke parties. Some supporters, for example, say that joke parties perform an important public service, ensuring that people do not take politicians too seriously. Joke parties also receive votes from people who are disillusioned by the political process, or who feel that none of the "serious" parties are worth voting for. This is sometimes directly encouraged — in New Zealand, McGillicuddy Serious sometimes advertised itself as an entertaining way to waste one's vote. Some voters feel that voting for a joke party is a useful form of protest vote. Tomma Talande Stolar (Empty Vocal Seats) in Sweden was formed to the stated objective of getting a seat in the parliament and leaving it empty.
For the most part, joke parties do not win seats, although there have been a number of notable exceptions. The defunct Polish Beer-Lovers' Party was probably the most successful joke party, having won sixteen seats in the Sejm (3.5% of the total) in the 1991 elections. In Iceland, joke party Besti flokkurinn (The Best Party) founded by comedian Jón Gnarr won local council elections in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík, winning 34.7% of the votes, compared to the Independence Party's 33.6%, and won six seats on the council.
Other parties, such as the Monster Raving Loony Party, have won seats on local councils. Even if a joke party does not win, however, it may still poll better than other unsuccessful "serious" parties.
Read more about this topic: Frivolous Political Party
Famous quotes containing the word support:
“I concluded that I was skilled, however poorly, at only one thing: marriage. And so I set about the business of selling myself and two children to some unsuspecting man who might think me a desirable second-hand mate, a man of good means and disposition willing to support another man’s children in some semblance of the style to which they were accustomed. My heart was not in the chase, but I was tired and there was no alternative. I could not afford freedom.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“I support all people on earth
who have bodies like and unlike my body,
skins and moles and old scars,
secret and public hair,
crooked toes. I support
those who have done nothing large.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952)