BURLINGTON, United States (AFP) - Socialism will get its first-ever face in the US Senate on Thursday when veteran Vermont politician Bernard “Bernie” Sanders takes a seat in the powerful upper house of the legislature.

In a country where most people think more of North Korea when they hear the word “socialism” — rather than, for instance, democratic socialist Scandinavian countries — Sanders, 65, will be a new phenomenon in the staid two-party system of Washington.

The son of Jewish immigrants from Poland is hardly an extreme leftist. But those in his home state used to his gruff, straight’spoken ways say he could stir up the debate over the policies of President George W. Bush as he assumes his role as a key ally of the new but slim Democratic majority.

Sanders swept to victory with a decisive 65 percent of the vote in the Vermont senatorial race last November.

Running officially as an independent but never hiding his socialist ideas, he trounced a businessman who spent seven million dollars of his own fortune in the race.

But it was hardly surprising after a three decade career in Vermont politics, where people have learned that his disheveled air of a college professor and his strong accent from his native Brooklyn, New York, don’t pose a threat to US democracy.

“I’m a democratic socialist,” he says, explaining his beliefs.

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