Not Dead and Still Red

The UK media tends to cover elections in other countries on a distinctly irregular basis – except for the USA, where we get pretty thorough coverage of the Presidential elections, and often the mid-term ones too. Not so with other EU countries, which is odd, given that so many punters and politicians enjoy banging on about that same EU.

So while I know that there is an election happening somewhere on the Algarve some time soon, as I haven’t asked around or tried to unpick the Portuguese posters and fliers, I don’t know what’s up for grabs. But I do know the identity of one of the parties on the ballot.

There are an awful lot of posters for the PCP. Who they? Well, mastery of the language on this occasion is not necessary. The familiar hammer and sickle device at the foot of the poster tells you that this is the Portuguese Communist Party. And they’re hot on dealing with corruption.

Other European countries also have Communist parties active in local and national politics. But then, most of the demands in the original Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels have become part of the mainstream.