SAO PAULO ? 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.
Francisco Silva became famous as Tiririca ? “Grumpy” in Portuguese ? and received about 1.3 million votes, nearly twice as many as the next-highest vote-getter in last month’s congressional elections.
His campaign videos drew millions of viewers on the Internet, with slogans such as “It can’t get any worse” and “What does a federal deputy do? Truly, I don’t know. But vote for me and you’ll find out.”
See? Even Brazil doesn’t want grumpy clowns in Congress who won’t read the bills.
