Aussies elect… Mr Paparazzi
Celebrity Big Brother contestant Darryn Lyons has been elected the new mayor of Geelong.
The flamboyant Lyons, whose paparazzo career has helped him become a media personality, completed the transition to politics by taking an impressing 30% of the primary vote in Australia's largest non-state capital city.
Lyons, 48, who likes to be known as 'Mr Paparazzi', declared his victory was a triumph for "youth and energy".
He told the Geelong Advertiser he had no easy answers for the city but suggested he might be able to use his social media contacts to local advantage.
"If we can get Shane Warne and (his fiancee) Liz Hurley to rock into town for an event, that can only be good for Geelong," he suggested.
Lyons toned down his preposterous haircut for the election campaign – an astute move which resulted in him getting more than twice the number of primary votes than nearest rival Stephanie Asher.
The result is a significant improvement on his sixth-placed performance in 2011's Celebrity Big Brother, when he finished behind Jedward but ahead of the Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow.
It follows the resignation of the city's first directly elected mayor, Keith Fagg, who quit just nine months into a four-year term.
"We've gone from a non-drinking, strong Christian and we are going to someone who owns pubs and clubs and is incredibly flamboyant," local councillor Jan Farrell told the Age newspaper.
"It's going to be interesting."
