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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Monkey-Mayor.html

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May 3, 2002

Man in Monkey Suit Wins Election
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
 
Filed at 8:51 a.m. ET


HARTLEPOOL, England (AP) -- Maybe it was the offer of free bananas that
won over the voters.

A man in a monkey costume swung into action Friday as the first elected
mayor of the northern English town of Hartlepool.

Stuart Drummond, who ran as an independent candidate in local elections
Thursday, campaigned in the monkey costumes he wore for his job as
``H'Angus the Monkey,'' mascot of the local soccer club. Among other
things, his monkey candidate offered free bananas for schoolchildren.

But Drummond, who will earn $77,000 a year as mayor, said Friday he is
taking his new post seriously, and has resigned as the ape mascot of
Hartlepool United Football Club.

``Forget about the monkey. The monkey was there only for promotion
purposes. The monkey was just for publicity,'' he told voters Friday,
dressed in a business suit.

``I am Stuart Drummond, I am the Mayor of Hartlepool, not the monkey.''

Peter Mandelson, the Labor lawmaker who represents Hartlepool in
Parliament, said Drummond's campaign ``was about real people, their
aspirations, their hopes and their fears, particularly young people of
this town.''

The H'Angus monkey is a humorous corruption of a derogatory nickname
for the townspeople, who according to legend were once known as the
``monkey hangers'' for reputedly hanging a monkey during the Napoleonic
Wars. They believed it was a French spy -- or so the story goes.

In the second round of voting Thursday, Drummond received 52.1 percent
of the votes, and Leo Gillen, the candidate from Prime Minister Tony
Blair's Labor Party, got 47.9 percent.

Directly elected mayors form part of plans by Blair's Labor Party to
reform local government. London elected its first mayor, Ken
Livingstone, in May 2000.


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