"Sydney's Own Dear Clover is More a a Mixture of Respect and Fear"

Scandals: He's not our MOM

Melbourne's Lord Mayor, John So, has been named the World's Most Outstanding Mayor, but we're here to dispute the claim before it goes to the Second City's head. We reckon Melburnians rorted the poll in some way.
As we understand the situation, Melbourne's infatuation with So is a mixture of respect for his management skills and amusement at his cuteness (Sydney's view of Our Own Dear Clover is more a mixture of respect and fear). During the Commonwealth Games, Them Down There wore T-shirts bearing So's name and wrote songs dedicated to him. Now, it seems, they've overwhelmed an international website.
So's triumph was announced yesterday by a group called City Mayors, who said he had been voted the best from among 677 civic leaders. Over five months earlier this year, City Mayors polled 103,000 people (or roughly 0.000016 per cent of the world's population). So got more than 16,000 votes, enabling him to join such previous winners as Edi Rama of Tirana, Albania, who went on to become the country's opposition leader.
Did anyone in Sydney even know about this contest? We're sure Clover Moore would have at least 16,000 supporters willing to cast an anonymous vote to get their mayor some worldwide recognition next year. The campaign starts now: Clover for MOM in '07! Prepare to vote on worldmayor.com. Ballots open sometime in June, we think.