Krzysztof Kononowicz
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Krzysztof Kononowicz (born January 21, 1963 in Kętrzyn) was a Polish mayoral candidate for the city of Białystok in Poland who attracted some notoriety for his simple, unsophisticated political advertisements on television. These were enormously popular and featured heavily on YouTube, outrating videos of major celebrities, including one of Britney Spears breaking up with Kevin Federline.
Krzysztof Kononowicz was a candidate for the "Podlasie for the 21st Century Party" ("Podlasie XXI wieku"). Several weeks before the elections, members of one electoral committee in Białystok, convinced him to run for Mayor of Białystok. Kononowicz agreed. He is a 43 year-old bachelor, unemployed, vocationally educated as a car driver-mechanic, living with his widowed mother in a wooden house.
A TV advertisement was made, and this brought him international notoriety. His political ideas, so stated on the TV commercial, were populist and included "punish drivers for drinking, smoking and... for everything!" and "open companies and job places for youth and for people". Other aspects of the commercial, such as his sweater and vocal mannerisms, gave the commercial a distinct and recognizable look.
Within several days, over 4 million internet users had seen the commercial on You Tube. The video also made it to Polish national TV. Lot of things supposed to belong to Kononowicz (characteristic sweater etc.), souvenirs, mugs, t-shirts are being sold on the Internet auctions.
Kononowicz won 1676 votes (1.9%). Despite this fact, he by far became the most famous person out of the mayoral election, mainly due to his personality, and the fact the TV advertisement was put on YouTube.
