Wow! (Candanadian political party)

Wow!
Leader	Stefan Bober
Secretary-General	Karl Bober
Founded	April 1, 2008
Headquarters	13-29 The Esplanade New Konigstadt CCR A9K 2J5 Candanadium
Newspaper	The Radish (Kanadiaans: Das Radieschen) Self-proclaimed by publication and not endorsed by party
Ideology	Populism Single-issue politics
Political position	Centre
Slogan	Wow! Only real issues Wow! Nur echten Sachen
Members of Parliament	1 / 612

Wow! is a single-issue political party in Candanadium founded in 2008 by activist and journalist Stefan Bober, who has led the party since its inception.

The party has been described by the Konigstadt Times as "a one-man farce", an "ego trip", and a "social venture for irritable suburban retirees". Its only current MP, Roger Pfarrer (Waldrand-Cape Communities NTC), formerly served as the interim Minister of Agriculture in the Democratic Party government under Chancellor Rüdiger Thaler (1983–1987), who joined the party after being expelled from the Democratic Party for making remarks opposing the election of women to Parliament. The party fields candidates in Belkhomir and Caskhomir without having local chapters or affiliate parties, one of the few political parties in Candanadium to do so.

The party has gained some international prominence due to its occasional criticism by the Candanadian media, leading to spin-off parties being launched in Trefjall, Akarea, and even Edofasia, though all have taken the form of joke parties. This development has been condemned by the party's founder, Stefan Bober, who intended Wow! to be a serious Candanadian political movement.

History

Stefan Bober is a journalist who formerly worked for the Westmark Observer, before being fired in 2008 for breaching journalistic ethics by sending a fake letter of ransom to the then-Minister of Agriculture, claiming that the minister's daughter had been taken hostage, while the minister had just announced the day before that the government would reduce subsidies for large-scale commercial farms and wineries. Bober had been known for his vociferous defence of rural and agricultural interests in his column in the Observer.

In response, Bober founded Wow! in order to seek election to the Parliament of Candanadium, as speeches made in Parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege as long as unparliamentary language is not used. The idea for the name came from his six-year-old child.

Platform

As of 2015, Wow!'s party charter outlines the following policy positions, among others:

Social issues

• Mandatory gender reassignment surgery for individuals identifying as homosexual
• Criminalization of non-itinerant homelessness

Local governance

• The forestation of all traffic roundabouts with fruit trees as to provide public access to fresh fruit
• Withholding all forms of federal funding from all provincial and local authorities who do not enact restrictions on the maximum width of bicycle lanes, as to prevent traffic congestion

Agriculture

• National Service to include the option of working unpaid on farms
• All farms and farmers to be exempt from federal income tax
• Deregulation of child labour on farms

Foreign policy and defence

• Unilateral Candanadian withdrawal from the Kaltach Union and the World Congress
• Abrogation of the Candanadium-Trefjall Mutual Defence, Freedom of Movement, and Free Trade Agreement and withdrawal of all Candanadian forces from Trefjall
• Negotiate the transfer of Hautsing to the Akarean Union or any other willing state in exchange for tribute and bullion

Culture

• The Ministry of Candanadian Heritage to begin the free public provision of poppy flowers and poppy seeds upon request
• An annual budget travel tax rebate for Candanadians aged over 45, of at least 1000 thalers in value

Constitutional arrangements

• Abolition of all provincial and regional viceregal positions
• Parliament's size to be fixed at 100 MPs, elected through ranked-ballot proportional representation
• Bestowing all MPs who cross the floor and survive re-election with knighthoods or lordships
• Raising the voting age to 30

Language policy

• Granting full official language status to the Trefjalli and Caskaans languages
• Abolition of the genitive case and grammatical gender in the Kanadiaans and Trefjalli languages
• Abolition of the double negative in the Caskaans language
• Introduction of the accusative and dative cases to the Caskaans language to create grammatical consistency across all official languages (except the Oseanian language)
• Abolition of the eszett (ß) and umlauted letters (ü, ö, ä) in Kanadiaans
• Abolition of the eth (ð) and thorn (þ) letters in Trefjalli
• Adoption of the simplified Akarean Mandarin script in Hautsing

Controversies

On May 1, 2016, the party's sole MP, Roger Pfarrer, was ejected from Parliament for the duration of the day's sitting by the Lord Speaker, Gabriel Luther, for showing up visibly drunk to a debate on the adoption of a tax on sugar, briefly occupying the government front bench before being told to move, but not before insisting angrily that he was still a minister (which he had not been for more than thirty years) and that efforts to remove him from the government benches were "democracy manifest". After relocating to the opposition front bench (while being booed by government and opposition MPs), Pfarrer burped loudly while the Chancellor responded to a question from a Conservative MP, thereby disrupting the House's proceedings (as much of the House erupted into raucous laughter), and finally rose on a point of order only to call the Minister of the Coast Guard and Fisheries a "kiddy fiddler" who "probably keeps candy in his pocket to get the parliamentary pages into his office and under his desk". The Minister had allegedly accidentally bumped into Pfarrer earlier that week and spilled the cup of tea he had been carrying. Subsequently, party leader Stefan Bober released a statement defending Pfarrer's actions, explaining them as an "impassioned accusation" and contesting the Royal Broadcasting Service's coverage of the events. For this, the party has been officially censured by the Candanadian Parliament in a vote of 577 to 1.