thousands of Castillo supporters demand the closure of Congress

First modification: 11/11/2022 – 03:13

A cry in support of the Peruvian president, Pedro Castillo, resounded in the streets of Lima. Thousands of people gathered in the capital of the Latin American country calling for the closure of the Parliament controlled mostly by opposition forces and the cessation of what they called “political persecution” of the president.

“La Toma de Lima” was the name with which the demonstrators baptized the mobilization that began in the morning hours with the concentration of a hundred people in front of the facilities of the Congress of the Republic. A concentration that generated blockades of the vehicular passage of Abancay avenue, one of the main ones in the city.

Later, thousands of people arrived from different parts of the country in a sort of counter-protest to the demonstrations on November 5, in which the removal of the president was massively requested.

On this occasion, social, union and political organizations echoed several of the president’s proposals that have been blocked by Congress.

Thus, the demonstrators demanded a “new Constitution”, one of Castillo’s main promises. The president even sent a referendum project to convene a Constituent Assembly that would be in charge of writing a new Magna Carta, but the initiative did not prosper when it was rejected by Congress in May.

Tear gas and police repression

With tear gas, the Police sought to disperse a group that sought to approach the Congress headquarters in Lima. The clashes took place in the afternoon in the middle of a mobilization that had been mostly peaceful.

In the altercations, several people were arrested, but the exact number has not been confirmed. According to the National Police of Peru, one of the detainees was a man who, apparently drunk, tried to attack the demonstrators.

In parallel, Congress decided to suspend its work this Thursday. The protests denounce that the legislative body controlled by opposition forces is seeking to harm the president by stopping a large part of his initiatives.

Peru faces “a convulsive scenario”

“We are in a scene of upheaval, the country’s institutions are under attack, there must be respect for the separation of powers, since they are autonomous bodies,” said the Ombudsman of Peru, Eliana Revollar, this Thursday.

The official also pointed out that the country’s democracy is threatened and that the country is witnessing “very serious acts of corruption.”

Revollar set off the alarms about the violation of Human Rights in Peru and stated that “public policies and governance are under attack, there is no direction towards adequate management.”

A support in the midst of a complex political landscape

This Thursday’s mobilization is a breath of fresh air for a president, who seems to be increasingly weakened.

According to the portal ‘Bloomberg Línea’, Castillo had unfavorable rates of 66% at the end of October. Figures that call into question the figure of leader of the president, despite the fact that his approval rose from 23% to 26%.

Last month was especially complex for Castillo. The country’s Prosecutor’s Office filed a constitutional complaint against him for leading an alleged criminal organization in the Executive, as well as for influence peddling and complicity in an alleged case of collusion.

The appeal was consolidated as one of the most forceful against the president, who already has six other investigations in just over a year in office.

For his part, Castillo reacted by assuring that he was trying to carry out a “new type of coup” in Peru. His legal team sought to block the constitutional complaint in Congress, an initiative that did not prosper after being classified as inadmissible by the Peruvian Judicial Power.

In the midst of the tense panorama, the president called for an inspection by the Organization of American States on the country’s democratic situation. The request was accepted by the organization that will visit Peru on November 20 and 21.

With EFE and local media