5 ridiculous election promises that went down in history
Politicians promise to lower taxes, raise wages, and make life better—the public nods, journalists take notes, and political strategists look approvingly at charts. Boring. But sometimes someone enters an electoral campaign and offers every citizen a pony, outlines plans for a space fleet, or seriously discusses free towels in public swimming pools. And suddenly, the elections begin to resemble a political stand-up show. True, behind some jokes lay a rather serious idea.
Political promises generally live by their own rules. The closer the voting, the easier it is to find an extra billion in the budget, the faster roads are built, and the more confidently the candidate knows how to solve a problem that others unsuccessfully tried to fix for twenty years.
However, the heroes of this selection went further. Some consciously turned their campaign into satire. Some exploited nostalgia. And others said things that, decades later, sound so wild that at first you want to check if a comedy screenwriter made them up.
1. Jón Gnarr: Free Towels for Everyone
In 2010, Jón Gnarr—an actor and comedian who led the "Best Party" he founded—became the mayor of Reykjavík. The name alone made it clear that this would not be a traditional political campaign.
Voters were offered a polar bear for the city zoo, an amusement park, and a whole collection of promises seemingly put together late at night over a pint of beer. One of the most memorable was free towels in all city swimming pools.
Why towels specifically? For the residents of Iceland, a swimming pool is not just a place to count laps and seconds. Thermal pools have long become a part of urban social life: people go there to relax, talk, and meet friends.
Behind the absurdity lay a rather biting mockery of ordinary populism. Following the 2008 financial crisis, trust in traditional parties plummeted. Gnarr essentially offered voters an honest deal: if politicians are handing out promises left and right anyway, why not promise something pleasant?
The story ended quite gracefully later on. The towels never actually became free. When it came time to count real city money, it turned out that even a joking promise has a very serious price. Gnarr admitted that he couldn't pull it off.
And perhaps this is precisely where satire finally met real politics: promising is easy. Reading the budget is much less fun.
2. Lord Buckethead: Britain Needs a Space Fleet
If a candidate's surname translates roughly as "Lord Buckethead," the beginning is already promising.
Lord Buckethead is a British political character who for decades appeared in elections wearing a black suit and a giant helmet resembling a bucket. Behind the mask, different people hid over the years, so the voice, height, and build changed. The main thing remained unchanged—the platform.
It was magnificent.
In the 2017 election, Buckethead proposed creating a space fleet worthy of Britain's naval history. Border guards were to be issued laser rifles. And singer Adele was to be nationalized—she was simply too valuable a strategic asset to leave without state supervision.
The logic is simple: if regular candidates can promise the nearly impossible with a serious voice, why should a candidate in a bucket limit themselves?
Buckethead never looked like a man who would actually go off to form a cabinet of ministers tomorrow. That was the point of the persona. He pushed campaign rhetoric to such a degree of absurdity that familiar political promises standing next to him also began to sound a little suspicious.
The space fleet was, of course, never built. Adele was also left to herself. Britain somehow survived.
3. George Wallace: "Segregation Forever"
And here, it is no longer funny at all.
In January 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace uttered a phrase during his inaugural speech that would forever be associated with his name: "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
This happened at a time when the civil rights movement in the United States was gaining momentum. The country was changing—and a part of society was desperately trying to maintain the old order.
Wallace turned out to be one of the most prominent political voices of this resistance. His stance found support among millions of Americans, especially in the South. For a section of voters, the conversation wasn't just about racial laws. They perceived what was happening as the destruction of their familiar world—and voted for anyone who promised to preserve it.
History sometimes tests such promises rather harshly.
Federal civil rights legislation gradually destroyed the legal foundation of segregation. Years later, Wallace himself changed his public stance and apologized to Black Americans.
His example stands out among the other figures on the list. Here, the absurdity is visible neither in a costume nor in a fantastic promise. It lies in a politician's attempt to halt historical change with the simple word "forever."
4. Vermin Supreme: A Pony for Every American
Gray beard. A boot on his head. A toothbrush almost the size of a human.
Seeing Vermin Supreme for the first time, it's hard to tell what's happening: a rally, a carnival, or the filming of a very strange commercial. Meanwhile, he has repeatedly run in US electoral campaigns and turned the persona of a mad candidate into a long-term political project.
One of his main points is a free pony for every American.
Not a metaphorical one. A pony.
Supreme explained the idea in the spirit of classic populism: if politicians act as if state money is enough for anything, why not buy the population several hundred million small horses?
Other points on the platform kept up the standard. Preparation for a zombie apocalypse. Time travel research. Fighting problems whose existence has yet to be proven. And, of course, talk about the power of democracy on such a scale that gravity itself starts to feel nervous.
Behind all this circus, a quite understandable idea can be read. Supreme is not so much offering the impossible as showing the mechanics of promises: find an emotional problem, name a grandiose solution, don't dwell too long on the question "how much does it cost"—and move on.
The pony simply makes this scheme more noticeable.
5. Silvio Berlusconi: Bringing Back Italy's Better Days
For a ridiculous promise, you don't necessarily have to wear a bucket or hand out pets.
Sometimes it's enough to say: we will bring back the better days.
Silvio Berlusconi repeatedly led the Italian government, and his campaigns were built around a very understandable emotion—the country needed to regain its lost confidence and former success. To this was added the standard political kit: lower taxes, more jobs, a stronger economy.
Such promises have one problem. They are almost impossible to measure.
What times should be considered the best? Economic growth? The voter's own youth? Post-war development? Fellini's Italy? The Roman Empire? Everyone has their own version of the past in their head.
This is precisely why nostalgia is so convenient in politics. A GDP growth chart can be verified. The number of new jobs—as well. But the feeling that "things used to be better" exists in memory, where numbers are no longer the primary argument.
A person remembers not just the country of twenty years ago. They remember themselves. Younger, healthier, full of plans. And a politician promising to bring back the past subtly sells the hope of bringing back that state of being as well.
Why Absurd Promises Actually Work
You can laugh at space fleets and ponies, but the distance between political satire and a standard campaign is sometimes surprisingly small.
A good campaign promise rarely sells a specific project. It sells a feeling. Safety. Justice. The return of control. The hope that tomorrow will become clearer, calmer, and wealthier.
That is why some figures on this list deliberately drove political logic to the point of absurdity. A free pony is funny precisely because the mechanism of selling it to us is familiar. You just need to remove the word "pony" and substitute something more solid.
Others, on the contrary, became prisoners of their own promises. A politician utters an effective phrase before a crowd, people applaud—and a few years later, it turns out that life stubbornly refuses to adapt to a slogan.
Perhaps the best test for any campaign promise is quite boring: not "how good does it sound?", but "who will do it, how much does it cost, and how will we know the promise has been fulfilled?" After three such questions, political magic usually fades noticeably.
And a free pony, come to think of it, is at least honest. It's immediately clear what exactly you were promised.