Julian Assange's party ready for next round of Australian elections

SYDNEY, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he is ready to throw his hat into ring for the next Australian Senate election despite losing in this year's voting.

Assange told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Sunday he was optimistic after his fledgling WikiLeaks Party made its debut in the recent primaries with seven candidates, even though none of them was elected.

"The party was registered exactly three months ago, and we are the second-largest vote count for the new parties after Clive Palmer's party, which had a billion bucks behind it," Assange said.

ABC said WikiLeaks received 25,667 votes in the Victoria Senate race, a mere 1.19 percent of the total.

Assange pointed out he wasn't able to do any face-to-face campaigning since he has been restricted to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and has had his finances curtailed by U.S. banks.

"It's had a leader and primary candidate stuck in an overseas embassy for 400 days in a foreign country, nine hours' time difference," Assange said. "Bank of America blocked donations from me to my own political party."