…and Won an Election in a Landslide
On election day, Cacareco charged to first place and won in a landslide: the rhino garnered over 100,000 votes, 15% of the total cast. As The New York Times reported, Cacareco “earned one of the highest totals for a local candidate in Brazil’s recent history“. It was actually the highest ever total won by any city council candidate until then. A sore loser party leader complained bitterly: “A ridiculous vote for a ridiculous rhinoceros. Nowhere, and never before, have 100,000 literate adult voters cast their ballots for a silent, absent, and nut brained quadruped“.
The joke candidate’s victory had some real life consequences that were not so funny. One of the failed candidates was so humiliated that he lost to a beast, that he committed suicide. Cacareco’s victory caused significant concern and hand wringing in Brazil, as some worried it indicated the country was on the verge of revolt. In the meantime, the Sao Paulo zoo’s director asked the city to pay Cacareco’s City Councilman salary. However, the fix was in, and election officials nullified her ballots. Rather than sit on Sao Paulo’s City Council, Cacareco was returned to Rio de Janeiro’s zoo, and died in 1962 while on exhibition in another zoo.