REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MEXICO CITY - This mayoral hopeful in Mexico promises to eat, sleep most of the day and donate his leftover litter to fill potholes. Morris, a black-and-white kitten with orange eyes, is running for mayor of Xalapa in eastern Mexico with the campaign slogan "Tired of Voting for Rats? Vote for a Cat."
And he is attracting tens of thousands of politician-weary, two-legged supporters on social media. Morris has a website, a Twitter account and a Facebook page with more than 115,000 'likes,' that makes him more popular in social networks than the five human mayoral contenders. Americo Zuniga, the candidate for the ruling party who is leading in election polls, had 33,000 Facebook 'likes' as of Friday.
"He sleeps almost all day and does nothing, and that fits the profile of a politician," said 35-year-old office worker Sergio Chamorro, who adopted the 10-month-old feline last year.
Put forth as a candidate by Chamorro and a group of friends after they became disillusioned with the empty promises of politicians, Morris' candidacy has resonated across Mexico, where citizens frustrated with human candidates are nominating their pets and farm animals to run in July 7 elections being held in 14 states.
Also running for mayor are "Chon the Donkey" in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, "Tina the Chicken" in Tepic, the capital of the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, "Maya the Cat" in the city of Puebla and "Tintan the Dog" in Oaxaca City, though their campaigns are not as well organized as that of Morris.
Morris' cuteness, the clever campaign and promises to donate money collected from the sales of campaign stickers and T-shirts to an animal shelter has attracted cat lovers, but Chamorro said most of his supporters are citizens tired of corrupt politicians and fraudulent elections.
"Morris has been a catalyst to show the discontent that exists in our society," Chamorro said. "Our message from the beginning has been 'if none of the candidates represent you, vote for the cat' and it seems people are responding to that."
Xalapa, a university city of 450,000 people, is the capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, where residents have in last two years been beleaguered by drug violence, corruption scandals and the killings of at least nine reporters and photojournalists.
During last year's presidential election, a video posted on social networks showed a massive warehouse in Veracruz stuffed with election give-away groceries. Authorities also seized 1.9 million USD in wads of cash found when police decided to search passengers of a private plane arriving from Veracruz to Toluca, the capital of the home state of now-President Enrique Pena Nieto. Officials later said they had found no wrongdoing and the money was returned.
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