The Brazilian Communist Party?

I knew it existed somewhere in the back of my mind, but I had trouble visualizing it until recently - Brazil still has a communist party. It's called PC do B. I'm tempted to believe that they use the abbreviated form to avoid using the word "communist", but one has to think that if they wanted to play down the whole "communist" thing, they'd disband (Brazilians certainly have no problem forming new political parties), or at least stop using this as their logo:



Anyway, they came into the news recently the same way most politicians here do - fighting corruption charges. By now, a corrupt minister trying to hang onto his job isn't news. Probably most of the 36 (yes, 36! there are a lot of allies to please with ministerial positions, so you have to make up a lot of ministries if you are a Brazilian president) ministers are corrupt, but it still takes time for the press to mount enough pressure for them to have to leave their offices, as five have done since Dilma entered office this year. The new minister under fire is the Sports Minister, who is accused of receiving kickbacks from NGOs that received government funding.

Though I probably shouldn't, I am dispensing the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing, since I just can't fathom a Brazilian minister of sports not using his position to get lots of kickbacks in the run-up to the World Cup. Communist or not, government ministers have one purpose - to funnel public resource to themselves and their allies.