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| Down Under |
| Assange 'real chance' of election in Australia: poll |
| 2012-05-19 |
| Controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stands a real chance of winning an upper house seat in his native Australia if he presses ahead with plans to stand for election, a poll showed Saturday. A survey conducted by the ruling Labor party's internal pollsters UMR Research and published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper showed 25 percent of those polled would vote for the whistleblowing website chief. Supporters of the left-wing Greens party were most likely to be pro-Assange, with 39 percent saying they would vote for him, meaning he had a good chance of wresting a Greens Senate spot, UMR's John Utting told the newspaper. "There is clearly a significant level of support for Julian Assange which crosses party lines and is more concentrated amongst Greens voters," he said. "At this stage Julian Assange stands a very real chance of being elected to the Senate should he run." Some 27 percent of Labor supporters said they would vote for him, as did 23 percent of conservatives, in the survey of 1,000 voters. Assange unveiled plans to run for Australia's 76-seat Senate in March, vowing to be a libertarian and "fierce defender of free media" were he elected to the upper house. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #2 Is he not going to be tried and jailed for whatever they had under house arrest for, the last time I paid attention? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2012-05-19 17:22 |
| #1 I don't think he means the same thing by libertarian as I do. And if he takes a seat off the Greens I won't be too unhappy. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2012-05-19 03:47 |