April 17, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1429

PARIS, April 16: Fed up with the flaws of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain? Here’s your chance to set things right.

An innovative website using Wikipedia-like collaborative software has given people around the world to design the perfect -- if sadly fictional -- candidate for the US presidency. On www.Wikicandidate08. com, contributors in the quest for the ideal person to run America over the next four years can edit or over-write previous entries, changing the sex, name, photo and political agenda and response to events in the news.

Wikicandidate has kicked off proceedings with an imaginary candidate based on a real-life American satirical comedian, Stephen Colbert.

According to the site’ bio, Colbert plays cello and mandolin and wants to fix climate change, global poverty and food insecurity.The project has a serious goal, the British weekly New Scientist reports in next Saturday’ issue.

It has been launched by researchers at Cornell University in New York, who want to explore the benefits and disadvantages of “online civic participation” in an election year.

If enough people take part, the profile of the candidate that eventually emerges “will act as a wish list” of the characteristics that voters desire in a US president, they hope.—AFP