WIKILEAKS' founder Julian Assange is leading an online poll to be named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" - while an online bookmaker painted him as the equivalent of Saddam Hussein in betting terms.
In a poll on Time's website, Assange had 298,975 votes - 76,207 ahead of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and more than 160,000 ahead of pop singer Lady Gaga, in second and third places.
Other big names in the poll include IT figures Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, who were trailing at 22,164 and 15,933 votes respectively.
Being named "Person of the Year" doesn't necessarily make you a public hero - Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin have also been previous winners of the title.
But online bookmaker YouWager.com is betting on Time playing it safe this year - saying the odds of Assange appearing on the prestigious cover are only 20 per cent.
"With all the fervor against him in the United States right now, he's the equivalent of Saddam Hussein," Cory Scott, operations manager for the website, told the Toronto Sun, referring to the former Iraqi dictator who was executed in 2006.
"It seems to us a magazine like Time isn't radical enough to choose him."
Assange, 39, was refused bail and remanded in custody until next Monday during an extradition hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.
The decision followed his arrest by appointment at a London police station on four charges, including one count of unlawful coercion and one count of rape related to alleged incidents in Sweden in August.
Following his arrest, Time magazine was forced to deny rumors the Australian had been removed from candidates in its online poll.
"Not only has Julian Assange NOT been banished from the TIME Person of the Year Poll, you can vote for him right here," the magazine tweeted, providing a link to its website.
The Time "Person of the Year" will be named by editors of the magazine next Wednesday and issue will hit newsstands the last week of December.
Source: heraldsun.com.au
