LIMA, July 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Peru’s President Martin Vizcarra offered to cut short his term and hold elections to end what he called an
institutional crisis.
He said Sunday in a speech to Congress this would also involve shortening the term of the legislature. As it stands, general elections are scheduled for
July of next year.
Vizcarra’s proposal comes with Peru’s executive and legislative branches
locked in a massive power struggle.
The president said his idea would need to be passed by the opposition-
controlled legislature, and then approved in a referendum.
“The voice of the people must be heard,” Vizcarra told lawmakers, as some
cheered him and others yelled insults, in a session on Peru’s national day.
“Peru is screaming out for a new beginning,” Vizcarra said.
Shaken by a string of high-profile corruption scandals, Peruvians
overwhelmingly approved Vizcarra’s anti-corruption reforms in a December referendum.
But he has repeatedly clashed with Congress, which is dominated by the
Popular Force party of Keiko Fujimori, who is herself in prison pending trial
on corruption charges linked to Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Vizcarra had originally threatened to dissolve Congress and force new
legislative elections in June, unless lawmakers backed his anti-graft
proposals.
He won a vote of confidence in Congress at the time, and the government
was expected to begin negotiations with the opposition over introducing the
reforms.
The reforms ranged from campaign finance, to limiting immunity from
prosecution that lawmakers enjoy, and blocking those convicted in court from seeking office, as the South American nation of 33 million sought to emerge from the shadow of Latin America’s biggest graft scandal.
The proposal to lift legislative immunity turned into the source of the
latest conflict between Peru’s executive and legislative branches; Vizcarra
proposed giving the Supreme Court power to decide whether to strip a
legislator of the protection.
Congress, which currently holds the power to lift judicial immunity,
rejected the idea.
Vizcarra’s proposal to move up elections was met with praise from
businesses and analysts, as well as leftist members of Congress, but his
opponents accused him of creating too much uncertainty in the government.
“The president is looking to shake up Congress, because there has been no
improvement in investment or development in the country,” said Fujimori-
allied congresswoman Cecilia Chacon.
“The president has nothing to show the people, so he has created a media
show to keep getting air time,” she argued.
Under Peru’s Constitution, Vizcarra cannot run in the next election. He
has said several times that he would not seek to do so.
Vizcarra, who was vice president to his predecessor Pedro Pablo Kuczynski,
rose to power from relative obscurity 16 months after Kuczynski’s
resignation, when the latter was forced out in 2018.
Kuczynski, who is 80 and underwent heart surgery in May, is being held
under house arrest over accusations of money laundering.
Peruvian prosecutors opened an investigation into Kuczynski in June 2018
for his alleged involvement in the sprawling Odebrecht scandal, in which the construction giant paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes across
Latin America to secure huge public works contracts.
The investigation also looked into two other former presidents, Alejandro
Toledo and Alan Garcia.
Garcia committed suicide in April after police arrived at his house to
arrest him for money laundering.
Toledo was arrested in the United States in July to face extradition
charges to Peru, but remains in US custody.
A fourth former president, Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine Heredia were indicted in May for allegedly laundering assets.
On July 24, Peru’s Supreme Court said it will decide in August whether to
free Keiko Fujimori, accused of accepting $1.2 million in illicit party
funding from Odebrecht, from pre-trial detention. — NNN-AGENCIES
