A South African politician has gnawed a hat after swearing to eat one if his party lost votes in this week’s elections.

Mosiuoa Lekota, leader of the small Congress of the People (COPE) party, picked one out several hats that were offered to him – with tomato sauce on hand.

“I did not say I will finish the hat,” he joked on Friday.

“I have most of my teeth out, but I will try with my dentures, so I can say I never lied to the people of South Africa,” he told journalists and party officials.

He then bit the hat several times.

The COPE, a breakaway from the governing African National Congress, took about 120,000 votes in Wednesday’s elections, down from more than a million votes in 2009.