Non-human electoral candidates

Non-human electoral candidates have been found in a number of countries. Often, the candidacies are a means of casting a protest vote or satirizing the political system. Other times, it is simply done for the entertainment value. Electoral regulations may explicitly require candidates to be human (or equivalent wording), or may require candidates to do things which animals cannot reasonably do (such as sign their name legibly on a legal form). On some occasions, however, animals have been accepted as candidates, and have even won office. Several animals in the US have been elected mayors of small towns such as Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, whose mayor is a black lab named Junior Cochran, and Lajitas, Texas, whose mayor is a beer-drinking goat named Clay Henry III. Both Rabbit Hash and Lajitas are unincorporated towns where the mayoralty is purely a ceremonial position, not an actual leader of government. Boston Curtis, a brown mule, was offered as a candidate for a Republican precinct seat in Milton, Washington in 1938, winning 52 to zero. The mayor of Sunol, California was, for 10 years (1981–1990), a black Labrador-Rottweiler named Bosco. In 1989, regional council boundaries were redrawn, with an emphasis on catchments being connected. These revised maps made Whangamomona, NZ part of the Manawatu-Wanganui Region. Residents wanted to continue to be part of the Taranaki Region, and on 1 November 1989, they responded by declaring thems lves the "Republic of Whangamomona" at the first Republic Day. At every Republic Day, they vote to either keep the seating President or to vote in a new one. Since 1999, they have had Billy Gumboot the Goat (1999–2001) and Tai the Poodle (2003–2004), the current incumbent being Murt "Murtle the Turtle" Kennard (2005–Present). In 1997, a cat named Stubbs was elected mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska. In 2001, a Dachshund called Saucisse (Sausage), was a candidate for Marseille (France) municipal elections. He won 4% of votes. Eight years later, in 2009, he participated the third season of Secret Story, the French version of Big Brother. He entered the house on Day 36. His secret is that he was a candidate at the election of Marseille Mayor. To protect his secret, he entered the house with the nickname "Secret". In 2006, a famous prankster and street artist from Szeged, Hungary, proclaimed himself the founder of the Hungarian Double-tailed Dog Party, going as far as to place propaganda ads out on the walls of Szeged's houses, promoting the candidate "Istvan Nagy", a two-tailed dog. The notion of animals being elected to office have often been the subject of parody and folklore. In 1972, American singer Tom T. Hall had a hit with a recording entitled "The Monkey That Became President" which considered a scenario in which said animal was elected to office. Thomas Love Peacock's 1817 novel Melincourt featured an orangutan as a parliamentary candidate.