Khan: It's me or else

From our correspondent lurking around the bazaars in Karakorum in the hope of not being seen

President Genghis Khan of the Mongolian Republic formally opened his campaign for re-election last night at a gathering of clans near his pleasure dome at Xanadu. Although the president does not, strictly speaking, have to go through the process, since anyone declaring themselves a candidate is automatically classified as a Chinese-loving foreign devil in league with the sinister western powers of the Holy Roman Empire and the Aztecs, and hence disqualified under the Head Chopped Off By Scimitar Act, nevertheless he likes to keep up what he calls the "quaint traditions of the morons who voted for me".

The President began his address by tossing the freshly severed head of an opponent into the arena with the exultant yell "There's more where that came from". He followed it up with a blistering attack on the Pope, the Shogun of Kobe, the priests of Angor Wat who refused to let him knock down the temple for a new camel-racing track and anyone capable of reading or writing on the grounds that sooner or later they would write something about him that he didn't like.

Under the slogan of Let's Make Mongolia Greater By Destroying Everyone Else, Khan led his tribesmen in the chanting of "What do we want? A Horde" "What colour shall it be? Golden" before announcing that the result of the first opinion poll was:

       G. Khan (Progressive All-Mongolian People's Slaughter 'Em All Party) - 100%
       Everyone else - 0%.

He said that despite the encouraging results, he was not complacent and still needed campaign funds. The basis of donation was simple, he went on, everything you own plus what you can steal from your neighbours. These funds were needed not only to counter the lies of everyone else in the entire world who seemed to think he was no more than a blustering lying tyrant but to build another ten stately pleasure domes, one for each wife, as well as the long-awaited Great Wall of Mongolia to keep out the Chinese.

When an advisor pointed out that the Chinese already had a Great Wall of their own to keep out the Mongols, Khan was not ruffled. Playfully severing both of the hapless official's arms, he joked "I wanna build another wall on top of the first two and then put a few pleasure domes on top of that. That's what the Mongolian Hordes want. Or, if it isn't now, it damn well will be once I've shown them what the alternative will mean for their families. "