Fulano

The official portrait of Paco Fulano that hangs in the Federal Palace.

Fulano is the family name of the current government of the Central American nation of El Humidor. Algún "Paco" Fulano is the President, though decisions are made behind-the-scenes by Alguna "Evita" Fulana. The speaker of the national legislature is Pablo Quiensoy, who is an in-law.

The prominence of the Fulano family — so dominant that the surname has come to mean, in Spanish, any unknown person, a veritable Latino John Doe — is comparable to the Snerdley family in the production of the Rush Limbaugh program, or the Bush family in the U.S. Republican Party, though in the latter case, the individuals are known and it is only their belief system that is a mystery.

Early years

Fulano was born in the 1970s, a time of great social upheaval, and ponytails. His mother was not named Fulano, but she claimed the father was. Fulano went to school in the municipal system of the capital city of San Humidor, at a time of great vandalism and lunch-room pranks, most of which were blamed on Fulano.

Political career

Fulano's meteoric rise to power owes to the classic battle between Marxists and their mercantilist opposition. The perennial conflict left the average Humidorean extremely receptive to a campaign to vote for any old Fulano, and Fulano is plenty old, probably.

Policy positions

A predictable tendency throughout the Fulano administration is for decision-making to be anonymous. The President welcomes criticism of decisions taken by "Fulano" and does not worry about the consecuences in future elections.

During Fulano's presidency, the capital city was briefly renamed No-sé-donde, a name that roughly translates to Utopia.

Other Fulanos

The NAP's 1992 Presidential Nominating Convention.

Regrettably, Fulano's electoral success did not carry over to other countries. The only attempt was in the U.S., where the New Alliance Party in 1988 and 1992 ran Lenora Fulani for U.S. President. She had been the candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York State in 1982 and hoped to repeat her complete lack of success on the national stage. The NAP was optimistic about running "some fulani," but the misspelling even doomed her appeal with Hispanics. Her 1988 candidacy was a first in several ethnic categories, but her whopping 0.2% vote total was not, though she added a digit the second time, polling 0.07%. In 2000, she threw her support behind Pat Buchanan, a veteran of getting few votes, and would go on to be the token Negro on his steering committee, though she quit with a statement that he "was trying to further his right-wing agenda." Being the last person in America to realize this marked the end of her blind date with electoral politics.

Recent events

In 2023, individuals identified as "Fulani militia" stormed two villages in central Nigeria, killing 21. Police got a hot tip that this would happen and set up checkpoints, which the terrorists made a mockery of by identifying themselves only as "Fulani", which loses a lot in the translation. Other terrorists took a different route entirely to the homes and farms they intended to seize after shooting up the village. This also made a mockery of the checkpoints. The Nigerian press will not say who they are, for fear of being targeted themselves; only that they are "some Fulani". The actual militia resolved to restore law and order to the region, on the line between Nigeria's Christian and Muslim parts. The reader can guess which the Fulani are. Restoring law and order would consist of somehow extricating the Fulani from their new properties; then giving them back to their original owners, notwithstanding their recent deaths.