He’s tattooed from head to toe, a warrior-like mix of blue, green and red.
He’s also running in a surprising third place ahead of this week’s Czech presidential elections.
Vladimir Franz, an opera composer and painter, seems the most unlikely of candidates for a prestigious post previously held by beloved playwright-dissident Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, a professor credited with plotting the economic transition from communism to a free market. Some have a nickname for Franz: `Avatar.’ And during a televised debate a caller compared him to “an exotic creature from Papua New Guinea.”
But he’s not short of admirers in a country where voters are increasingly tired of politicians they say are corrupt and failing to deliver on years of promises, more than two decades after the fall of communism.
Franz has no political experience and confesses to little knowledge of economics. He says he only threw his hat in the ring after a group of admirers established the Franz for President initiative and begged him to shake up the race through his shock factor. But he’s stirred up such goodwill that a leading economist offered his services for free and his campaign workers are also volunteers. He’s only spent $25,000 from donations on his campaign and hasn’t put up any posters.
Franz burst onto the political scene with an eye-catching 88,000 signatures at the end of 2012 – far more than the 50,000 required by law. Not affiliated with any party, he has campaigned mostly on a platform highlighting graft, the importance of education and the nation’s moral standing.
