‘Grumpy the Clown’ elected to Brazil’s Congress, but can he read?
Earlier this year we ran a piece by Julia Ioffe on some of the eccentrics and entertainers elected to Russia’s Duma under the front-page headline "Send in the Clowns." Now I feel like we may have used that one too early: Grumpy the clown won election in a laugher, getting more votes than any other ...
Earlier this year we ran a piece by Julia Ioffe on some of the eccentrics and entertainers elected to Russia's Duma under the front-page headline "Send in the Clowns." Now I feel like we may have used that one too early:
Grumpy the clown won election in a laugher, getting more votes than any other candidate for Brazil's Congress. Now he has to prove that he can read and write.
The Sao Paulo Electoral Court held a closed-door exam for the clown turned congressman-elect on Thursday to determine if he meets a constitutional mandate that federal lawmakers be literate.
Earlier this year we ran a piece by Julia Ioffe on some of the eccentrics and entertainers elected to Russia’s Duma under the front-page headline "Send in the Clowns." Now I feel like we may have used that one too early:
The exam was held on Thursday and apparently Tiririca both "read and wrote" during it, though it’s not yet clear if he was proficient enough to hold office.
Just for the record, in Brazil, people like Tiririca and "Chico bin Laden" are allowed to run for office, but professional comedians aren’t allowed to make fun of them. This makes a lot of sense.
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy Twitter: @joshuakeating
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