Peruvians are asking for sooner Presidential and Congress elections
Thousands of people marched on Thursday in Peru in support of the government proposal to advance the general elections by 2020, amid a continuing confrontation between President Martín Vizcarra and the Congress of opposition majority.
Woman entering her vote in an urn. / Reference image / Pexels
Reuters | Marco Aquino y Reuters Televisión
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Leer en español: Peruanos piden adelanto en las elecciones
Under the slogan "let them all go" and "out of the corrupt," protesters marched through downtown Lima in a protest repeated by other major cities in the country, according to images broadcast on local television.
Vizcarra, a vice president who took the reins of the mining nation in March 2018 after the resignation of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, proposed at the end of July to cut the presidential and congressional management's year to leave what he considers a trap that does not let rule.
The presidential and legislative mandate have a parallel period of five years and the current one ends in July 2021.
"We are in an ungovernable situation, we want new elections and that Congress and Vizcarra also leave," said Celly Baquerizo, a 60-year-old housewife on the march.
Congress, led by the conservative Popular Force party of former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, began discussing the proposal on Wednesday and most lawmakers gave signs of rejection of the government initiative.
While Vizcarra's plan, which has a tiny legislative representation, is supported by leftist parties and some independents who accuse Fujimori's party – in prison while investigating her for money laundering – of curbing a political and judicial reform to combat the corruption.
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"Supervising is not obstructing," Congress chief Pedro Olaechea said earlier on Thursday, defending the decision on the previous day of a legislative commission to investigate corruption cases that would involve Vizcarra and his surroundings.
Vizcarra had said on the eve that the investigations announced seek to harm the Government and that is why the population reacts with a "fully justified" mobilization.
In the march, which was attended by at least 5,000 people, many shouted: "urgent, urgent, close the Congress."
According to opinion polls published in several local newspapers in recent weeks, most Peruvians support the proposal to advance elections and reject the actions of Congress, a traditionally very discredited institution.
Peru has suffered a wave of corruption scandals in the case of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht that has involved the four former ex-presidents: Kuczynski is being held at his home while they are investigating him and Ollanta Humala waits in restricted freedom for a trial for electoral financing.
Alan García committed suicide when he was to be arrested for the Odebrecht case and Alejandro Toledo is imprisoned in the United States while evaluating his extradition.
