Brazil, Latin America: Week in Review
Brazilian Clown Needs To Pass Literacy Test For Congress
October 6, 2010 By Staff
Brazilian clown and elected congressman Tiririca.
Today in Latin America
Top Story — A popular Brazilian clown who got more votes than any other candidate for the country’s congress might be barred from taking his post, unless he convinces authorities that he can read and write.
In a ruling by Sao Paulo electoral court, Tiririca, whose real name is Francisco Silva, must meet the constitutional mandate that federal lawmakers be literate to take office. He will have 10 days after being notified to prove his literacy in a written defense.
Judge Aloisio Sergio Rezende Silveira also overturned another magistrate’s decision to throw out the lawsuit against Tiririca after hearing that forensic examination revealed concerns over whether it was his handwriting on his official electoral application.
A week before the election, Epoca magazine reported that coworkers on Tiririca’s show said that he was illiterate and a video posted on the magazine’s website shows a reporter reading questions from an election poll to the famous clown. When asked to read one of the questions himself, Tiririca becomes visibly upset before campaign aides rush in to assist him.
Tiririca became internationally famous when he won a congressional seat representing Sao Paulo last Sunday in Brazil’s general elections. He picked-up 1.3 million votes, more than any other candidate nationwide.
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Caribbean
- Cuba has already promised to fire a half-million state workers and reshape its communist economy. Now universal free education and health care, the very building blocks of the 1959 revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power, could face cutbacks.
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Central America
- Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom on Monday formed a committee to investigate how U.S. scientists could have deliberately infected Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases from 1946-1948.
- Two children have died from hemorrhagic dengue in Honduras, raising the death toll from the disease to 74, a health official said.
- Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said Monday that his visit to Cuba is intended to repair the “historic sin” of earlier administrations of his country and he said he supported building a relationship of mutual benefit with the island from a “pragmatic and realistic” position.
- The death toll caused by rains in Nicaragua in the last weeks rose to 66, Civil Defense officials said Monday.
- Vegetable production in Costa Rica will lose more than us$40 million this year due to continuing rains in Central Americaand the collapse of its road infrastructure, according to industry sources.
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Andes
- Colombia’s competition authority on Tuesday placed conditions on the proposed $452 million acquisition by Philip Morris International Inc. of a Colombian cigarette manufacturer.
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Southern Cone
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Image: Visionshare @ Flickr.
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