The president of Peru calls for calm to the protesters who are arriving in Lima

First modification: 01/18/2023 – 11:31Last modification: 01/18/2023 – 11:49

On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of protesters from some regions of the country marched through the streets of Lima until you get to the Plaza San Martín, historic epicenter of the protests. Since Cuscodozens of peasants in buses and trucks left Monday night for the capital, others do it from Fist, on the border with Bolivia. The first to set foot in Lima have been a group of peasants from the city of Andahuaylas, who arrived in trucks and cars this morning and are concentrated in Plaza Manco Cápac.

The protesters’ platform of demands is essentially political: they call for the resignation of the president, immediate elections and a Constituent Assembly. The Government has already rejected all these requests although the president, Dina Boluarte, He asked the protesters who come to Lima to express their demands in peace and calm. “We know that they want to take Lima because of everything that is coming out on the networks the 18 and 19, I call you to take Lima, yes, but in peace, in calm. I wait for you at the government house to be able to talk about the social agendas you have,” said Boluarte in an official activity.

Boluarte stated that citizens expect “an orderly democratic transition”, until the general elections in 2024, and that their duty is to guarantee free elections. Roadblocks continue to set the tone for the protests. However, this Tuesday they woke up blocked by pickets 94 road sections in 8 of the 25 regions, three regions less than the weekend. Law enforcement released early Tuesday morning a section of the Panamericana Norte highway, artery that connects the capital with those regions of the country. The protests, which leave at least 42 dead in five weeks, according to the Ombudsman’s Office, resumed on January 4 after a truce for the New Year holidays. Boluarte, a 60-year-old lawyer, was vice president until December 7 when Congress dismissed Pedro Castillo for his failed self-coup. The president requested last Friday sorry for the deaths caused by the crisis and urged lawmakers to speed up the process to hold early elections in April 2024.

The president of the Congress, Jose Williams Zapataannounced that the House presented a draft legislative resolution that seeks advance the second ordinary legislature 2022-2023 so that it begins next February 15. For the early elections to be approved, it requires two votes, but in two different legislatures, because it is a constitutional reform. However, some parliamentarians have come out against this legislative resolution and are raising legal questions. One of them is the first vice president of the Board of Directors, Martha Moyano, who mentioned that it can only be expanded, but not advanced. Only in the event that some of the benches present a project.

(With AFP and local press)