The WikiLeaks founder's Senate bid is a long shot, but there is method in his move.
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| Perhaps Assange is paranoid? Wouldn't you be?' Photo: AP |
Julian Assange is accused of many things, but few argue
he lacks chutzpah. His decision to stand for the Senate in September's election
seems ludicrous effrontery. The WikiLeaks founder is asking Victorians to vote
for him when he will be unable to campaign here because he is confined to the
Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted political asylum after
losing court challenges to prevent him being sent to Sweden to answer questions
about sexual assault allegations.
He fears Sweden would extradite him to the US, where he
could face decades in jail for publishing hundreds of thousands of leaked
government and military documents. Even writing that seems unreal. The Assange
story is now fantastical, almost unbelievable. The 41-year-old Australian,
holed up in the embassy since June, spends his time trying to hang on to a
semblance of his own version of his life as everyone else - journalists,
politicians, lawyers, current and former friends, filmmakers - construct their
own.
Assange's supporters insist his Senate tilt is more than
a stunt to pressure politicians to engage with his plight - it is a genuine
campaign with a slim chance of success. The first hurdle has been jumped - the
Australian Electoral Commission has accepted Assange's enrolment to vote
because he last lived in Australia in June 2010, within the three-year time
limit. If he is eligible to vote, he can stand for election.
The WikiLeaks Party, as yet unregistered, has a national
council of 10, a constitution and an experienced campaign director in barrister
and former Liberal Party staffer Greg Barns. The most likely scenario in the
Victorian Senate contest is that the Coalition will win three seats, Labor two,
with the sixth to be decided by preferences between various parties, including
the Greens, Bob Katter's new party and WikiLeaks.
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Preference flows would have to fall Assange's way but, in
the Senate, anything can happen - just ask John Madigan from the
all-but-defunct DLP, who slipped through in 2010 with 2.3 per cent of
first-preference votes.
There are many more hurdles. University of Sydney
constitutional professor Anne Twomey says the commission's decision to allow
Assange to enrol could be challenged if Assange was visiting his mother in
Mentone in 2010, rather than actually living with her.
''If this were the case and he was elected and his
election was successfully challenged, it would mean his election was void and
that his party had no right to nominate a successor,'' says Twomey. The person
with the next-highest number of votes would be elected.
There could also be a constitutional challenge on the
grounds Assange has been granted asylum in Ecuador. A person is ineligible to
be a candidate if they are ''under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience
or adherence to a foreign power''.
It is improbable that Assange could make it to Australia
to be sworn in even if he was elected. The party could then choose a
replacement - Assange's as-yet-unnamed running mate.
It all seems as improbable as a Townsville-born cyberpunk
with sporadic formal education dreaming up a secretive, international
organisation to anonymously receive whistleblower leaks online.
The leaks to WikiLeaks in 2010 were the biggest in
history. Many were deeply embarrassing to the US, including the ''Collateral
Murder'' video from 2007 showing a US helicopter attack that killed Iraqi
civilians and two Reuters staff. The 250,000 pages of US diplomatic cables
offered a glimpse into a vast array of global events, from actions in the
Middle East to efforts to control nuclear proliferation to the lead-up to the Iraq
war.
WikiLeaks still operates but it is weakened financially
because the US has all but stopped the flow of money to the organisation.
The attacks on its founder have also had an impact. A UK
blogger wrote recently that once-fawning commentators, who compared Assange to
''Jesus, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Jason Bourne'' (I kid you not), now
mocked him as a paranoid narcissist who thought himself ''above the law''.
Perhaps Assange is paranoid. Wouldn't you be? The US was outraged by the leaks and
has targeted the outsider WikiLeaks in a way that it has not repeated with
mainstream media organisations that just this week published more WikiLeaks
documents. US Vice-President Joe Biden has called Assange a ''high-tech
terrorist'' and senior officials have labelled him a criminal deserving
prosecution for espionage. There have been consistent reports of a grand jury
in Virginia investigating what crimes WikiLeaks and Assange may have committed.
All this may mean nothing. There is a fair chance the US
was bluffing and has failed to find anything with which to charge Assange. But
paranoia might seem understandable, at least without assurances that the US
will not seek extradition. And that is when Assange's Senate campaign starts to
make sense.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr in February said it was ''sheer
fantasy'' for WikiLeaks to claim that extradition to Sweden would mean a quick
transfer to the US, because extradition could have just as easily been sought
from Britain.
He might be right - although it is disputed - but if so,
could Carr ask the US whether it intends seeking the extradition of an
Australian citizen? If Carr has done so, could he let us know the answer? In
the spirit of WikiLeaks, why should that be secret? The government has avoided
the question again and again. Assange says he will go to Sweden if he has that
assurance.
It is a long shot for Assange to become a Victorian
senator, but if his campaign pressures the government to cease pretending this
is just another case of an Aussie in a spot of bother overseas, it will be a
victory, of sorts.
Gay Alcorn is a former editor of The Sunday Age and a
regular columnist. Twitter: @gay_alcorn
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