Brazil’s Most Entertaining Show May Be Congress [View all]

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More than half of the members of Congress face legal challenges, from cases in auditing court involving public contracts to serious counts like kidnapping or murder, according to Transparency Brazil, a corruption monitoring group.

The figures under investigation include the president of the Senate and the new speaker of the lower house. Just this month, the previous speaker, an evangelical Christian radio commentator fond of posting biblical verse on Twitter, was ejected to face trial on charges that he secreted as much as $40 million in bribes into Swiss bank accounts.

Many of the legislature’s problems stem from the generous rewards to be found in Brazil’s hydra-headed party system, an unwieldy collection of dozens of political organizations whose names and agendas often leave Brazilians scratching their heads.

There is the Party of the Brazilian Woman, for instance — a group whose elected members in Congress are all men.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/world/americas/brazils-most-entertaining-show-may-be-congress.html