Parliaments of Dunces

All this discussion of Congressional decorum will seem quaint to people in…just about anywhere else.  Forget the harsh questioning the British PM is subjected to-parliamentarians around the world routinely behave  like Jerry Springer guests. In 1972, an MP punched the Home Secretary during a debate over Bloody Sunday.  To find such a ruckus in Congress, you’d have to go back to 1856

or 1798.

Parliamentary donnybrooks are all too common today, in such varied locales as Iraq, Turkey, and Germany.  Which assemblies, it seems, do not have a C-SPAN equivalent.  Thanks to legislative panopticons elsewhere, we now present a video gallery of the vigorous exercise of democracy.

Japan

Czech Republic

Bolivia

Russia

Mexico

Taiwan

India (Uttar Pradesh)

Ukraine

Jordan

Nigeria

Sudan

And the award for Greatest Zeal in a Procedural Debate goes to… South Korea!

4 thoughts on “Parliaments of Dunces”

  1. Mexico's is pretty cool because the parties actually do stunts as well as fights. I remember when the discussion came up on what to do about PEMEX (the Mexican state oil company), and the PRD actually encapsulated the podium with their people under a flag as a sit-in to prevent voting on it.

  2. A few years ago a fight in the Somalian Parliament in exile featured one of the MPs using a chair as a weapon.

  3. Parliaments: Lots of heckling and no decorum, but you will get kicked out for calling someone a "liar"

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