LIMA, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Peru will hold separate parliamentary
elections for the first time on Sunday as President Martin Vizcarra looks to
break the influence of the main opposition party of Keiko Fujimori.
Vizcarra dissolved parliament in September following constant clashes
between the legislature and the executive that left Peru in a political
crisis.
After parliament’s objections were rejected by the constitutional court, a
date was set for new parliamentary elections in which Fujimori’s populist
right-wing party could lose dozens of its 73 seats in the 130-seat chamber.
Fujimori is expected to pay for being implicated in the wide-ranging
Odebrecht corruption scandal that saw her spend 13 months in pre-trial
detention until she was released in November.
Her Popular Force party has been the major bloc in parliament since the
last elections in 2016 and even managed to force Vizcarra’s predecessor Pedro Pablo Kuczynski — another politician embroiled in the Odebrecht scandal — from power in 2018.
But the daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori has seen her
popularity plummet.
Her party’s main allies in the legislature, the social-democrat APRA, have
also been hurt by the corruption scandal.
APRA’s ex-leader Alan Garcia, a two-time former president, committed
suicide in April as police turned up at his home to arrest him for corruption
related to the Odebrecht case.
Vizcarra dissolved parliament on Sept 30.
The new parliament will sit for only 16 months with a general election set
for April 2021, and the new government due to take office the following July.
There will be 2,300 candidates representing 13 parties, and for the first
time there will be an indigenous trans candidate.
Some 25 million Peruvians are eligible to vote.
The election will be observed by the European Union and Organization of
American States. — NNN-AGENCIES
