Can You Tell the Real Politicians from the Satirical Ones?

At least in Serbia, people know that politicians’ promises are ridiculous. NPR reports on a satirical candidate named Ljubisa Beli Preletacevic, or just Beli for short:

A new politician is here to save you. I’m pure and clean. Whatever the other politicians promise you, I will promise you three times more.

I’ll give jobs to everyone and big pensions to everyone. I’m going to move the sea here because we need a beach.

Satire it may be, but his new party won 12 council seats in his home town, and most of his party’s candidates are seriously seeking election. Reporter Joanna Kakissis continues:

There will be no corruption, excluding my own of course, he declares to one crowd. Please send all money directly to my pockets. Drama student Danka Svetilova laughs and asks for a selfie. She says mainstream politicians have lied to Serbs for years….

So that’s why she and her schoolteacher mom are voting for Beli in this Sunday’s presidential election. Better a fake candidate who tells the truth about lying, she says, than a real one who lies about telling the truth.