A hotel proprietor in Northern Italy accidentally became mayor of a small town earlier this week, without even intending to run for election.

Fabio Borsatti, 50, added himself to the mayoral ballot for the town of Cimolais as a last minute favor to the man actually hoping to become mayor, his friend Gino Bertolo, 65.

Bertolo, who had served as the town's mayor decades before, believed not enough people would turn out to the polls if he ran unopposed, which would have rendered his unanimous win invalid.

Of the 507 inhabitants of Cimolais, 160 voted for Borsatti, a man who ran without a platform; a man whose name they, presumably, had never heard, as he didn't even live in the town.

117 voted for Bertolo.

What did that guy do as mayor that made everyone hate him?

When Borsatti received the news, he was watching a soccer match. He told the journalist who had phoned him up to tell him to "leave [him] alone" (because he was being an angry Italian stereotype).

The best part of the story is that, now that he's won, Borsatti has no plans to resign from his position as mayor.

"I find myself a mayor who didn't want to be a mayor."

The BBC reports that he is thinking of maybe, I don't know, promoting tourism to Cimolais, or whatever, as part of his new office.

When asked if he was upset about the outcome, Gino Bertolo lied that he wasn't and said that it was an honor to take part in the election.

If I had been elected mayor of Cimolais, the first thing I would have done is declared the town an independent state, then thrown Gino Bertolo in jail on trumped up charges of treason.

What would you have done?

[The BBC // Tempi // VanityFair.it // Image via Shutterstock]