Assange (photo by AcidPolly on Flickr)
Controversial asylum seeker, Julian Assange, has successfully enrolled for federal and senate electoral rolls in Victoria, Australia.
Australian Electoral Commission has accepted Mr Assange’s enrollment as an eligible overseas elector in the Victorian federal seat of Isaacs, the seat of Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Expectations had been that the commission would reject his application. The WikiLeaks Party plans to run Assange and perhaps ten others in September’s elections.
The party’s national council compises Mr Assange’s father, Sydney architect John Shipton; one of the original founders of WikiLeaks, Melbourne mathematician Daniel Mathews; Australian National University physicist Niraj Lal; Maitland lawyer, political activist and former independent candidate Kellie Tranter; Sydney based digital archivist and freedom of information activist Cassie Findlay; Gold Coast based information technology blogger Gary Lord; Dandenong women’s refuge manager and WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance co-convener Kaz Cochrane; indigenous education consultant and activist Luke Pearson; and Oman Todd, cyber security and social media consultant with the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group. Assange has claimed asylum in Ecuador’s London Embassy and is avoiding extradition to Sweden and, he claims, the USA where he may be executed for WikiLeaks involvement with Bradley Manning and his release of records of US war crimes and human rights abuse.
Mr Assange has indicated that if elected and unable to return to Australia to take up a seat in the Senate, a WikiLeaks Party nominee would fill the vacancy.
Comments
slippery slope…
Where – in Ecuador???
Good-about time someone who has a conscience was in power
Good-about time someone was in power who had a conscience
The guy has allegations of sex-crimes to answer hardly a shining example for an elected representative?!
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/02/jemima-khan-inside-story-how-julian-assange-alienated-his-allies