Boluarte celebrates three months at the head of Peru with the shadow of the victims in the protests

First modification: 03/08/2023 – 01:12

The shadow of the crisis and ungovernability is deep in Peru and President Dina Boluarte knows it well, when she has been in office for three months. On January 7, she was proclaimed president of the country after the arrest of Pedro Castillo, of whom she had been vice president, after having tried to dissolve a Congress of which Peruvians had an even worse opinion than of the president himself. In these 90 days, the country has been plunged into a spiral of protests and violence.

Since Boluarte took office, Castillo’s supporters, many of them indigenous, peasant and popular class, took to the streets with various premises. Among them, the release of the then president, the call for new elections and a referendum for a constituent assembly in the shortest possible time.

Until this Tuesday, March 7, neither of the two has been fulfilled. Boluarte has been very critical of her predecessor, in provisional prison and accused, among other things, of criminal organization, and although she has tried to get Congress to advance the elections, an agreement has not been reached to content the streets.

In between, around 60 deaths in the protests, which have especially been registered in the Andean zone of the south of the country. They cry out against the historical inequalities in the Lima-periphery axis and launch an accusation: “Dina murderess”, directly blaming President Boluarte for the deaths of protesters.

In the international arena, the imprisonment of the former president and the actions of the security forces in the demonstrations have left Boluarte in a certain isolation, especially with respect to governments ideologically close to Castillo such as Colombia, Chile and especially Mexico.

With the latter, Peru reduced its relations “to the level of business managers” and withdrew its ambassador from there after numerous accusations of interference in Peruvian internal politics due to Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s criticism of the government’s management and the refusal to to pass the presidency of the Pacific Alliance.

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Organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and Amnesty International have even condemned police violence, as well as violence committed by protesters. On this anniversary for the three months of government, Boluarte had to declare for it before the Justice.

Boluarte before the Prosecutor’s Office for the death of protesters

The statement this Tuesday before the country’s attorney general, Patricia Benavides, was carried out in person, despite the fact that at first Boluarte’s lawyer asked that it be done virtually. In it, he “provided statements regarding the investigations that the Public Ministry is following” for possible responsibility in the deaths of protesters, the Peruvian Presidency reported.

The Benavides investigation is looking specifically for indications of possible commission of the crimes of genocide, qualified homicide and serious injuries. Together with Boluarte, the current Prime Minister Alberto Otárola and his predecessor, Pedro Angulo, as well as Defense Minister Jorge Chávez and former Interior Ministers Víctor Rojas and César Cervantes have been included in the process.

According to the Ombudsman’s Office, at least 48 civilians died during clashes with law enforcement, while a policeman lost his life after being burned alive and 11 other people due to roadblocks by protesters.

While this process is taking place, protests persist in a good part of the national territory. In the capital, Lima, there were again clashes between protesters and police over the weekend. On Sunday, six soldiers were killed in the Puno region, the epicenter of protests in the south of the country, as they tried to cross a river while allegedly fleeing anti-government protesters.

No agreement to advance elections

The country’s ungovernability and the fragmentation of the political spectrum have also been reflected in the Peruvian Congress.

So far four proposals have come for the electoral advance to 2024 and even for this 2023, but none of them has prospered.

The Government itself raised two proposals to end the current presidential term that should end in 2026. But after long hours of debate, to date no response has been achieved to one of the main requests of the protesters.

Also this Tuesday, the Constitution Commission of the Peruvian Congress analyzed, without reaching an agreement, the elaboration of a new project to advance general elections. If an agreement had been reached, the proposal would have been sent to Congress for debate, but there are several points of discrepancy.

Among the disagreements, according to the president of the legislative working group, Fujimori Hernando Guerra García, is the date for the vote and the condition in one of the proposals that a referendum for a constituent assembly be also called.

With EFE and local media