Curiosities of Politics

by JonathanRice (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.27

  Politics is a subject imbued with curiosities: from the rites associated with it to the curious figures who play a part in it. This investigation looks at recent politics of the 19th and 20th centuries across the world, and captures some bizarre occurrences in words and cartoons. There are the peculiar political parties - such as the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, which was described as being perfectly named except that it is neither liberal, democratic nor a party ; the curious voting systems - Enver Hoxha of Albania got 99.99993 per cent of the vote, when one voter out of the electorate of 1,627,968 failed to support his party in the 1982 election; the leaders whose wives really ruled; and the MP who was elected 87 days after his death. There are curious political ideas, such as EC regulations on the shape of bananas and cucumbers, and the political scandals, which perhaps demonstrate that the honest politician is the curiosity.