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The Peruvian Congress rejected an advance of the general elections to 2023 at dawn this Saturday, as President Dina Boluarte had requested, trying to find a way out of the serious social and political crisis that the country has been going through for seven weeks.
Congress, with 45 votes in favor, 65 against and two abstentions, rejected the initiative to advance the presidential elections to October 2023, initially scheduled for April 2024.
“With this vote, the constitutional reform proposal for the advancement of elections is rejected,” closed the president of Congress, José Williams. But at the close of the session, with verbal discussions between rival congressmen in the background, Fujiomorism presented a “reconsideration” of this vote that will be seen on Monday, although it is very difficult for the result to be reversed. Surrounded by protests, blockades and scarcity problems, President Boluarte asked Congress on Friday to advance the general elections to December 2023, to get out of the “quagmire” that the country has been suffering for seven weeks with a balance of 47 deaths.
“We put this bill for the consideration of the ministers to advance the elections to December 2023” on a “date and time that Congress says,” Boluarte said in a government act. Boluarte acknowledged that the protests, blockades and the violence with which they call for his resignation in the streets has worsened. Peru has been the scene of demonstrations for seven weeks calling for the resignation of Boluarte, who took office as vice president after the dismissal and arrest of leftist president Pedro Castillo on December 7 for having tried to dissolve Parliament.
The protests and roadblocks to demand the resignation of Boluarte, the advancement of elections and, to a lesser extent, the call for a constitutional assembly, do not let up and generate shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies. Legislator Susel Paredes, from the center, lamented the lack of will in Congress to advance the elections and criticized right-wing parties such as Renovación Popular and Avanza País, which opposed the advance, and left-wing parties that she considered took advantage of to promote a Constituent Assembly.
“I don’t see a vocation for either party to reach an agreement and we really need to reach an agreement, that’s what congressmen are for. If we are here representing the different political positions and the different regions of the country, we have the obligation to reach an agreement,” he said in an interview with RPP Noticias radio.
– “We can not wait” –
In the regions most furious with the removal of Castillo, and now most affected by the drop in tourism and the shortage of basic products, they only want Boluarte’s resignation. “We can’t wait. It has to be soon,” Sandra Zorela, a 53-year-old teacher in Cusco, a jewel of international tourism and an obligatory step to the Inca citadel Machu Picchu, currently almost closed, told AFP. The Ministry of Commerce and Tourism indicated on Friday that the sector has lost 6.2 million dollars a day due to the political crisis in recent months, and 85% of tourist packages have been cancelled.
Among the violent episodes on Friday, the attack on the house of the governor of Madre Dios, Luis Otsuka, by a group that threw sticks and stones because he agreed with the Prime Minister to facilitate operations to unblock the roads in this department of the jungle, stood out. about 1,500 km southeast of Lima. The Ombudsman’s Office counts 46 civilians killed in the clashes and a policeman burned alive, in addition to 10 civilians – including two babies – killed in events linked to the blockades.
– Missing or upload all –
The prolonged blockades generated shortages of fuel, liquefied gas for domestic use and some food in regions of the southern Andes and the jungle, poor and historically marginalized from Lima’s centralism. “There is no gas or gasoline. In the warehouses you can only get non-perishable food and everything is very expensive, up to triple what is normal,” Guillermo Sandino, an Ica-based marketing expert, told AFP on Friday.
The Chinatown of that city located about 200 kilometers from Lima, and a strategic point in the land connection between the capital and southern Peru, is key in the road cuts imposed in more than 100 sections. The Defense and Interior ministries announced on Thursday that the Police and the Armed Forces will unblock the country’s highways taken over by protesters. Meanwhile, in the historic center of Lima, demonstrations continue to be called.
