14 DAY TRIAL // Sith Lord Darth Vader is running to become the next Ukrainian president. The iconic movie villain announced his intention to enter the presidential race in the troubled country as the candidate for the Ukrainian Internet Party (UIP).
You may think that this is a big joke, but the story is as real as it can get. Well, the mysterious candidate is actually an unnamed protester dressed up like Darth Vader, and backed by white and red armored bodyguards, supposedly his loyal Stormtroopers.
But whoever hides behind the Vader costume from the Star Wars saga promises to restore Ukraine to its former glories and take responsibility for the fate of the country.
“I am prepared to take responsibility for the fate of this country, if fellow citizens do me this high honor. I alone can make an empire out of a republic, to restore former glory, to return lost territories and pride for this country,” the candidate says.
According to Yahoo News, the protester dressed up in the Vader costume has become quite popular in Kiev during the winter protests and seems pretty determined to win the May 25 election.
The Ukrainian Internet Party, which was recognized as an official political party in 2010, is well known in the country for its theatrical public stunts. Now, the party has paid the necessary 2.5 million hryvnia ($225,000 / €163,540) to register Darth Vader as their official candidate for the presidential elections.
The unlikely new candidate for presidency will run against 14 other runners-up who have signed up. Only five of them have been registered so far by the electoral commission.
However, this is not the first time the Dark Lord of the Sith is involved in political actions in Ukraine. He reportedly received about 3 percent of the vote when he ran as a write-in candidate for a spot in Parliament in 2012. And in November 2013, he made a bid to become mayor of Odessa after being carried to the city hall by his Stormtroopers, the elite soldiers of the fictional galactic empire.
The UIP was registered by the Ukrainian cyber-criminal Dmitry Ivanovich Golubov, who spent some time in jail for his involvement in a card fraud scheme. The party aims to create an electronic government in Ukraine, speed up the transition to digital media and offer free computer courses to all citizens of the country.
The Ukrainian presidential elections were originally scheduled to take on place on February 26, 2015, but were brought forward following the violent events in the capital of Kiev, that culminated with the ousting of the pro-Moscow leader Viktor Yanukovych.