American Time magazine: WikiLeaks head is first, then comes Turkish PM Erdogan

American Time magazine's readers have chosen Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks, in the weekly's annual poll for Person of the Year, as Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came in second.

Readers voted a total of 1,249,425 times for Julian Assange, who raked in 382,020 votes, giving him an easy first place. He was 148,383 votes over the silver medalist Erdoğan.

Top 10 readers' choices are Julian Assange, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Lady Gaga, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, The Chilean Miners, The Unemployed American, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile, Lady Gaga received 65,417 "likes" on Facebook, to Assange's 45,643.

Whether or not Assange will be named Person of the Year will be announced Wednesday morning on NBC by the editors of Time.

Time's managing editor Richard Stengel had an interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange via Skype on Nov. 30, 2010. But another Time editor, Fareed Zakaria, is known for his opposition to Assange and his work. Therefore, Time's choice for Person of the Year may not reflect the readers' choice.


/World Bulletin/