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Anderson Cooper and Ellen DeGeneres publicly endorsed his candidacy. Sky News Arabia, an all-Arabic-speaking news channel, carried news of his mayoral bid to the Middle East. The Internet swooned for Stan. He was a global star, and he died Sunday of kidney cancer after a nine-month illness.

Tuxedo Stan was three years old.

“I knew Stan from the day he was born,” says his owner, Dr. Hugh Chisholm, the Halifax-area veterinarian who adopted Stan as a kitten. “He was a real bright light, and when I saw that and saw his stunning good looks I said ‘Enough — I am bringing him home with me.’”

Stan exhibited an intense curiosity from an early age. When Dr. Chisholm and his wife, Kathy, brought home the groceries he would burrow into the bags and boxes. The couple lives on a large property with a fenced-in backyard. They jokingly refer to it as Catopia. Stan was mayor of this domain until municipal politics came knocking.

An acquaintance suggested that their handsome charismatic cat should run for office to draw awareness to Halifax’s feral cat problem.

“A group of five of us formed the Tuxedo Party, and then it became this crazy experience where Stan became an international star,” says Dr. Chisholm.

“He has over 17,000 followers on Facebook — on every continent, except Antarctica. And I would say 90% of his fan base was female. Cats seem to appeal to the ladies.”

And famous cats can get results, even when they don’t get elected. Halifax city council provided a $40,000 grant to the local SPCA in Tuxedo Stan’s name in the months after the election to help establish a low cost spay and neuter clinic.