It seems that Halloween has affected the parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Some voters came to the polling stations in very unusual apparel indeed. In at least one case the costume prevented them from voting.
Video footage from one of Kyiv’s Pecherskiy district polling stations shows a man dressed up as a panda leaving the voting booth and throwing his ballot into the ballot box. The video shows that nobody stops the panda from exercising his electoral right and he leaves the polling station, proudly holding his passport.
Watch Panda voting in Kyiv:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMRWi5eCJmU
But another man (well, sort of) was not so lucky. Dressed as Darth Vader, a hugely popular villain from Star Wars sci-fi series, attempted to vote in Odesa, but failed. The staff at the polling asked him to show his face for personal identification, but he refused to do so.
“Everyone knows that I’ll die if I take off my mask,” he later explained to Dumskaya.net web newspaper, referring to Darth Vader’s inability to breath without the help of a life support system in his mask. “Those people from the polling station are so ignorant.”
This is not the first time Darth Vader shows up in Odesa. Last November, he came to the city council to claim a land plot, but also failed.
After his unlucky attempt to vote, the man hovered around the premises of the polling station for some time, agitating passers-by to vote for Luc Skywalker (Darth Vader’s son and enemy in Star Wars series). At the same time, Dumskaya.net reported that Darth Vader was the most popular name that voters inscribed in the ballot in Odesa, along with Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.
“The election law has no restrictions on wearing costumes while voting,” commented Kostyantyn Khivrenko, spokesman for the Central Election Commission.
Panda’s secret was revealed on the day after election, Oct. 29. Panda turned out to be an actor from the sketch show filmed by local TV station TET. Head of TET jokes that panda “has ran off the film set” either because of desperate desire to vote, or just craving for attention.
Meanwhile panda’s voting video has already collected over 63,000 views on YouTube. Commentators joke that it might have been Yulia Tymoshenko or Ukraine’s most wanted murder suspect, Yaroslav Mazurok, voting in a cute panda’s costume.
Residents of Odesa seem to have an affection to dressing up and turning themselves into cartoon characters and other imaginary creatures. See Kyiv Post story on Odesa’s two living Barbies and a living anime character.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
