Peru Congress rejects impeachment of President Boluarte for deaths in protests

The Peruvian Congress rejected on Tuesday a request to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Dina Bolaurte presented by left-wing parties, which are calling for her dismissal for the dozens of deaths during the social protests.

The motion seeking the vacancy of Boluarte due to his “moral incapacity” to govern was denied with 64 votes. Another 37 voted in favor and a minimum of 52 votes from the 130 members of Congress was required to start the process.

As expected, the right-wing parties that dominate Congress dismissed the first attempt to remove Boluarte.

The opposition holds the president responsible for the death of more than 50 people, including civilians and soldiers, during three months of violent clashes that broke out in December after the assumption of Boluarte, 60, replacing the dismissed former leftist president Pedro Castillo.

“There are reasons for Boluarte’s vacancy, he has established a government of repression and death,” legislator Jaime Quito, of the Marxist Peru Libre party, which brought Castillo to the presidency, said during the debate before the vote.

Castillo’s expulsionwhich illegally tried to dissolve Congress, unleashed a wave of protests demanding Boluarte’s resignation, early elections, the closure of Parliament and an assembly to draft a new Constitution.

Protests with roadblocks, which at times paralyzed the operation of important mines in the world’s second-largest copper producer, have dropped drastically from more than a hundred in January and only continue sporadically in the Puno region, on the border with Bolivia.

“Responsibilities must be individualized,” said lawmaker Patricia Juárez, from the right-wing Fuerza Popular party, the largest bloc in congress. “Pretending for a vacancy at this time is not prudent,” she said in the debate.

Amnesty International said in February that it had documented evidence of the “excessive and disproportionate use” of lethal weapons by security forces in Peru in dealing with protests.

Boluarte, who must complete the current government mandate until July 2026, faces an investigation by the prosecution for the alleged crimes of “genocide, qualified homicide and serious injuries” for the deaths in the protests, in which part of his cabinet.

In addition, the prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into Boluarte for the alleged crimes of prohibited financing of political organizations and money laundering, related to contributions to the electoral campaign in 2021 that brought rural professor and former union leader Castillo to power.

Boluarte is the sixth president since 2016.

In 2018, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned from the presidency minutes before an impeachment vote that he had lost, while Martín Vizcarra was ousted in November 2020 in a vote in Parliament, among other transitional leaders or those who failed to finish their term. mandate.

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