A Canadian man, FĂ©lix-Antoine Hamel, has made history by receiving zero votes in a contested federal election, in a deliberate protest against the lack of electoral reforms in the country.
Hamel, who ran as a candidate in a recent by-election in Toronto, told CBC News: "When I saw the result, I was like: 'Well, I am the true unity candidate. Everyone agrees not to vote for me.'"
The Longest Ballot Committee, an electoral reform advocacy group, approached Hamel to run as a candidate. He lives in Montreal, hundreds of miles away from the electoral district, and was unable to vote for himself.
Hamel was among 84 candidates who listed their names for the by-election. While six other candidates received two votes each, Hamel was the only candidate who did not receive a single vote.
In 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that the federal election that year would be the last under the first-past-the-post system. However, after his party won a landslide majority, he abandoned the promise.
Hamel expressed satisfaction with bringing attention to electoral reform and participating in a fair democratic process. He highlighted his concern about the decline of democracies globally, saying: "As long as I have the right and the privilege to get zero votes in an election, then we are truly in a democracy."
Previous federal elections have seen zero-vote results, but in those cases, the candidates were running unopposed and were thus acclaimed as winners. Hamel바카라s feat marks the first time someone has won zero votes 바카라 and lost.
"I바카라m one of the last people that would be expected to make Canadian history in any way," he said.
