Record numbers of candidates running for election next month at a western suburbs council are largely the result of a proliferation of dummy candidates, the state Opposition, the Greens and those standing in the poll say.
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A dummy candidate is someone who stands for election with no intention of winning, but directs their preferences to another candidate.
There have been 95 nominations for Wyndham Council. At the last elections, in 2012, there were 46 candidates.
It has emerged that the highest profile candidate, millionaire property and education entrepreneur Intaj Khan, has at least eight candidates preferencing him in a bid to ensure his re-election.
One candidate giving his preferences to Cr Khan is Matt Riley, an organiser of legalise cannabis rallies held regularly in Flagstaff Gardens.
Mr Riley said on Wednesday he was "not really expecting to win" and was running with Cr Khan to lift his profile – in return for feeding votes to Cr Khan. "I don't know the technicalities of the term dummy," he said, when asked if he was a dummy candidate.
Cr Khan, a Labor Party member since 2010, was elected to Wyndham in 2012. Since then he has become well known, particularly for his proposed $10 million mansion, known locally as the "Intaj Mahal".
Candidate statements published by the Victorian Electoral Commission this week reveal Cr Khan has a number of candidates he has assembled into a loose team in one Wyndham Council ward, in order to win one of four spots amid the 41 nominations.
Cr Khan on Wednesday said that, because of the number of nominations, "it is very difficult to get elected".
He said the word "dummy" candidate was not correct and that he had a legitimate team. "We are all running in the same style. In a team, someone has to be the number one [candidate], two, three, four and so on."
Cr Khan estimated his campaign for Wyndham Council was costing him $100,000.
Mr Riley said Cr Khan was not doing anything untoward in getting this team together. "Intaj has just found a bunch of people who are passionate about things and then put them all together to try and increase his chances," he said.
But two other candidates running in Wyndham, Bro Sheffield-Brotherton from The Greens and Robert Petrevski, both warned of candidates "flooding" the ballot paper.
Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber said local government was being overwhelmed by "a stooge strategy [that] is all about rigging democracy".
"When you see dozens and dozens of candidates running for a single ward, that's not a sudden outbreak of democracy, that's an attempt to subvert it," Mr Barber said.
Opposition local government spokesman David Davis warned of "an army of dummy candidates massing" for next month's council elections.
He said the Andrews government had been warned about the dangers of dummy or "stooge" candidates, but had not followed the recommendations by former federal MP Petro Georgiou, handed to the Napthine government months before it lost the 2014 election.
"We sought to wind back the influence of dummy candidates," Mr Davis said.