 a perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for an elected office but seldom wins. the term generally isn't applied to incumbent politicians who successfully defend their seats repeatedly. perennial candidates can vary widely in nature. some are independents who lack the support of the major political parties in an area or are members of alternative parties (such as "third parties" in the united states). others may be mainstream candidates who can consistently win a party's nomination, but because their district is gerrymandered so that the party can never win a general election, the candidate likewise never gets elected (thus these types are often paper candidates). still others may typically run in primary elections for a party's nomination and lose repeatedly. numerous political candidates, although not all, run with the full knowledge of their inability to win elections and instead use their candidacy for satire, to advance non-mainstream political platforms, or to take advantage of benefits afforded political candidates (such as campaign financing and television advertising benefits). below is a list of notable perennial candidates. ==argentina== *josÃ© saÃºl wermus a.k.a. jorge altamira, leader of the trotskyist partido obrero, has run for president five times (1989, 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2011). his best performance was in 2011, with 2.31% of the votes. ==australia== * ben buckley, a farmer, has (unsuccessfully) contested gippsland in the house of representatives on 10 separate occasions. he first contested the seat in 1984, and has contested every election since 2001. an independent on six occasions, buckley ran as a one nation candidate in 2004, and has run as a liberal democrat in the past three elections (2008, 2010, and 2013). his best result came in 2010, when he polled 5.52% of the vote. ==benin== *bruno amoussou, leader of the social democratic party, ran for president four times (1991, [[beninese presi
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