{"id":59925,"date":"2020-01-27T16:06:15","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T08:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=59925"},"modified":"2020-01-27T16:06:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T08:06:17","slug":"peru-opposition-suffers-crushing-blow-in-legislative-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=59925","title":{"rendered":"Peru opposition suffers crushing blow in legislative elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LIMA, Jan 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Peru’s Keiko Fujimori-led opposition suffered a crushing blow at legislative elections on Sunday, losing dozens of seats in the Congress it had dominated since 2016, according to early results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a rapid count by the Ipsos research firm, Fujimori’s Popular Force party’s share of the vote has dropped from 36.3 percent in 2016 to just 6.9 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having dominated Congress<\/a> with 73 of the 130 seats, it is now set to be only the sixth largest party with less than 20 seats, according to projections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a big victory for center-right President Martin Vizcarra, who dissolved parliament in September and called snap legislative elections in a bid to end a political crisis between the executive and Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elections have produced a hung parliament dominated by centrist parties more likely to approve of Vizcarra’s anti-corruption reforms previously blocked by Popular Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest single party is set to be the centrist Popular Action with 10.1 percent of the vote, according to Ipsos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Christian fundamentalist party Frepap (8.8) come the right-wing Podemos Peru (8.25), center-right Progress Alliance (8.0) and the centrist Partido Morado (7.7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vizcarra said he wants to establish with the new Congress “a responsible, mature relationship that seeks a consensus that benefits Peru.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fujimori’s Popular Force looks to have paid for its leader’s implication in the sprawling Odebrecht corruption scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fujimori is accused of accepting $1.2 million in illicit party funding from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht for her unsuccessful 2011 presidential election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Odebrecht has admitted to paying at least $29 million to Peruvian officials since 2004, and bribing four former Peruvian presidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scandal decimated the popularity of the 44-year-old daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has already spent 13 months in pre-trial detention before being released in November, and on Tuesday faces a judge’s decision on whether to send her back to jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn’t just Popular Force losing badly, but also its main ally, the social-democratic APRA of former president Alan Garcia, who committed suicide in April as police turned up at his home to arrest him in a corruption case related to the Odebrecht scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

APRA is Peru’s oldest political party but with only 2.6 percent of the vote, according to Ipsos, it “will lose its party registration and be left out of Congress”.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were more than 2,300 candidates representing 21 parties in Sunday’s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote — the first time legislative elections have been held separately from presidential voting here — came 15 months ahead of the next general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It came about after Vizcarra dissolved Congress on Sept 30, a move that was widely popular amongst Peru’s 25 million population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new lawmakers will sit for only 16 months until the April 2021 general election, and a new president is due to take office three months after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Vizcarra nor any of the new lawmakers will be eligible for re-election in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election was observed by the European Union and the Organization of American States. — NNN-AGENCIES)<\/em>U<\/a>I<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LIMA, Jan 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Peru’s Keiko Fujimori-led opposition suffered a crushing blow at legislative elections on Sunday, losing dozens of seats in the Congress it had dominated since 2016, according to early results. According to a rapid count by the Ipsos research firm, Fujimori’s Popular Force party’s share of the vote has dropped from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59925"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}