HOME Election Morass

The main machinations in the present General Election in Soaptown, centre on various attempts to unseat the Rodent Party TD, Wilfred the white mouse, who won his seat in a local by-election.   A surprise candidate is Slinker Midnight, the undisputed leader of the Paramilitary cat gang, Hell's Felines. Midnight has been very vocal in his opposition to Wilfred's proposal to muzzle all cats, which was put before the Dáil recently and has passed its first reading with little opposition. He has put out tentative feelers for the support of humans, by referring to the traditional alliance between cats and humans in the face "rodent aggression" in the past, citing the Great Plague as an attempt at genocide against humans by the rodent population.   Wilfred has warned the humans to beware of cats, who, he says, have never served anyone but themselves, and he cited recent acts of vandalism and milk bottle theft by Hell's Felines, as an example of this.   At a recent meeting of the Urban district council, Councilor Huff complained that the animal candidates were playing cat and mouse with the human voters. The country was going to the dogs, he declared, in a pointed reference to the campaign of Lotus Blossom, the Pekinese from Prissy Villas, who is running for the newly-formed Dog Watch Party, in an uneasy alliance with the Man's Best Friend Party, which has more human support than her more militant group.   Councilor Pedant agreed. Animals should know their place, and stick to it, he said. This posturing as humans could only lead to dissatisfaction and strife.   Chaiman Caligula said he had warned the councilors about this not so long ago. He was now calling upon all humans, of whatever party, to band together against the animal threat and say: not an inch (or a centimetre). If they did not want to have the whole country taken over by the animals, now was the time to make their feelings felt.   Councilor Huff said that perhaps an even greater threat to human dominance presented itself in the form of Spindleweed Pucapile who was standing for the Fairies, with an agenda which would ban all humans from parts of the country which had been designated Wild Places over three thousand years ago. If carried through, this would leave humans with about twenty square kilometers for habitation. While no humans in their right mind would vote for such a proposal, the Fairies had shown in the past that they were not above rigging the ballot or using their magic illegally to subvert the rights of humans.   Chairman Caligula said an act was being rushed through the Dáil to ban magic during an election and to declare any results arising from magical interference null and void. This, he felt, would cut the toadstool from under Mr Pucapile's feet.   Among the other candidates of note, are Varey Verbose, who is at present talking Soaptown's first space craft somewhere near the edge of the galaxy (and has promised toreturn to take up his seat if elected), and the late Nigel Fishbone, who in life, was a member of The Poets' Spiral, and is now campaigning for the release of the ghost of Dara McDaid (Poet Of The People), who was recently sentenced to an eternity as a spirit guide by Mr Justice Whiskeybottle. The judge, claims Fishbone, has no juristiction over the dead. Whiskeybottle, he continued, would do well to remember that the victims of his miscarriages of justice are waiting for him on the other side and that he cannot live forever. Mr Fishbone is being backed by the Poets' Spiral. Their chairman, Fiacra O'Ferrule denied that Mr Fishbone had threatened the judge, but insisted that any wrongdoing might be reasonably laid at Justice Whiskeybottle's own door. "Dara McDaid was simply doing what every ghost is entitled to do - haunt," he said. "This ruling threatens every ghost in the realm and we mean to have it overturned."     Another name that has been put forward for election is that of the Invisible Man. No one seems to know his real name, where he came from or who he is, or if, in fact, he exists at all. With no agenda and no presence, most experts agree that the invisible man has little chance of victory.