AUCKLAND, Sept 19 - A New Zealand politician is planning to run nude through the streets of Auckland in the latest quirky incident linked to last Saturday’s cliff-hanger election.
Green Party MP Keith Locke promised during the campaign that he would run naked in the wealthy Auckland electorate of Epsom if Rodney Hide, leader of the rival right-wing ACT party was the winning candidate.
Polls and commentators had given Hide little chance but in the end he won by more than 3,000 votes.
Today Locke, 51, said he would make good his promise.
I've got it worked out, I've got a top class body painter, I've got a whole team of people who are going to be with me,'' he told National Radio. I’ve got the balloons, everyone’s going to be there.’’
He’s probably hoping Prime Minister Helen Clark, now a caretaker as counting and coalition talks continue, won’t be there.
Confronted during a campaign rally by a male heckler wearing nothing but a G-string and a fake moustache, she yelled: ``It’s a terrible disappointment … pass the magnifying glass!’’
The campaign before Saturday’s vote was littered with other strange incidents.
One candidate was accused of being obsessed with his private parts.
A reclusive Christian sect - whose belief s prohibit them from voting - spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell other Kiwis how they should cast their ballots.
Then there were two security scares.
One man threatened to blow up a hotel and another to crash a plane into Auckland’s Sky Tower.
New Zealanders are used to political shenanigans.
The previous parliament included a trans-gender MP and a dreadlocked rastafarian among its members.