The Peruvian Congress prolongs the crisis it created | T …

From Lima

At time of printing, Peruvians do not have a president. After the resignation of Manuel Merino -elected last Monday by the Parliament he chaired after having dismissed the former president Martín Vizcarra in a decision qualified as illegal by various jurists-, who fell due to massive protests against his government, which lasted less than a week, Congress prolonged the serious political crisis they created. Yesterday, the unicameral Parliament was supposed to elect Merino’s replacement, but 77 of the 130 members of Congress boycotted the election of the only candidate, Rocío Silva Santisteban, of the left Frente Amplio, which should have been a consensus application. Silva Santisteban got 42 votes in favor, but 52 voted against and 25 others abstained. The Fujimoristas and other right-wing coalition groups, with many of its most prominent members accused of various corruption charges, fired Vizcarra and replaced him with Merino, sparking public outrage, expressed in massive protests , and the political crisis, They had a front row seat to boycott a way out of the crisis they created. They rejected the election of Silva Santisteban. An irresponsible decision which prolongs and worsens the crisis which again places Congress as the central factor of the political crisis in the country and threatens to revive massive demonstrations in the streets.

For having been chosen, Silva Santisteban, 57, poet, journalist, university professor and activist for human rights and women’s rights, she would have become the first woman to become president in Peru and also the first person of a left party to rule the country. She was one of two lawmakers, of the eight bench members of the Frente Amplio, who voted against the removal of Vizcarra and to bring Merino to power.

Power vacuum over non-election of Merino replacement could help return former President Vizcarra. There is a lawsuit in the Constitutional Court (TC) to define the scope of the figure of “permanent moral incapacity” to impeach a president, the reason given to Congress for impeaching Vizcarra for receiving bribes while ‘he was governor between 2011 and 2014, a charge based on statements that are still under investigation. If the TC indicates that this ambiguous constitutional figure did not apply in the present case, as various legal scholars have indicated, it would be confirmed that Vizcarra’s dismissal was unconstitutional, but the TC must determine whether or not its decision is retroactive. , that is, if he resigns. the impeachment of the former president and, therefore, of Vizcarra should be reinstated in the presidency, or if his decision governs as a doctrinal clarification of this constitutional figure for the future. Important jurists are in favor of this second option. There is an open debate on the subject. The TC called an emergency session on Monday to see this matter.

“Let the TC define. The population and the international community hope that he will define TC, ”Vizcarra said yesterday, pending a decision that could bring him back to power. “A dictator has come out,” he said, referring to Merino. He congratulated the young people for mobilizing and described the two students killed by the police as “heroes”. On Friday, the prosecution ordered the prevention of leaving the country of Vizcarra for eighteen months due to the investigation into the receipt of bribes that was opened to him.

In the streets, all the outrage was directed against Merino and Congress for the decision to impeach the ex-president taken by parliamentarians widely questioned on accusations of corruption, but the demonstrators were concerned to specify that their mobilization was not in the defense of Vizcarra. So they agreed to say PageI12 several young people demonstrating against Merino on Saturday evening. “We are not here to defend Vizcarra, we have to defend democracy. Vizcarra will have to be tried in due course, ”Ximena Guevara, a 26-year-old lawyer, told us. Similar opinions were numerous. All the voices demanded the departure of Merino, very few the return of Vizcarra. “It’s for democracy, it’s not for Vizcarra,” was a phrase very heard, and read on the posters.

As Congress gathered to decide who to elect to replace Merino and come out of the crisis that Congress itself created, on the outskirts of Parliament, and in the streets and squares across the country, thousands of people who protested last week demanding the departure of Merino was still mobilized, pending this decision. They demanded that the person chosen to take on the country’s presidency not be one of the 105 congressmen from the coalition that brought Merino to power. They warned that if that happened, the protests would resume. The protesters were only ready to accept the election of one of the nineteen lawmakers who voted against the impeachment of Vizcarra who brought Merino to power. In the end, Congress did not elect anyone in the vote last night and prolonged the uncertainty, power vacuum and crisis.

Congress put Merino in power, in a move described by the majority of the country as a parliamentary coup, and the streets removed him from office. There were six days of continuous protests until the fall of the very brief Merino regime, dubbed the “usurper”. He was appointed president Monday by the Congress he chaired, took office Tuesday, appointed Thursday in his ministerial cabinet dominated by the far right, and Sunday he was forced to resign. The Saturday night death of two young people in anti-government protests sparked the final hours of the highly questioned and precarious Merino presidency, who had formed a government with the most flawed Peruvian ultra-conservatism.

The deceased are two university students, Jack Pintado, 22, and Inti Sotelo, 24. Pintado died from multiple pellet hits on the face, neck and chest, Sotelo was shot in the chest. Their deaths and injuries are a dramatic testimony to the far-right Merino government’s brutal crackdown on citizen protests. On this crackdown, Merino took no responsibility in his brief resignation message. But now he could be prosecuted for these facts.

The two deaths occurred in central Lima, the scene of the biggest protests, which since Monday evening, when Vizcarra was sacked and Merino appointed to his replacement with the support of members of Congress exposed for corruption, have been repeated simultaneously throughout the country. , and in the capital, they have performed in various neighborhoods, from working-class neighborhoods to exclusive residential areas. These are the biggest protests that the country has long remembered.

Saturday’s protest, like previous ones, was peaceful, until, as on previous occasions, police attacked protesters, the vast majority young, firing gas and pellets. They were shooting at the body. A young man was walking with the tear gas cloud starting to cover the square, lifting up a sign that read: “Mum, I have come out to defend my homeland, if I don’t come back I will go with her.” A few meters away, the two students who did not want to go home fell.

This Sunday, Merino, whose situation was untenable, resigned from the presidency in a short televised message of just over five minutes. His resignation turned protests into celebrations. The cries of “Merino doesn’t represent me”, “Go out with the corrupt”, changed to “Yes, it is possible”. As soon as Merino finished speaking announcing his resignation, cacerolazos were heard in all the cities of the country, in all the districts of Lima. Cacerolazos that the last few days had been a demonstration, this Sunday was a celebration.

In the massive mobilisations yesterday Sunday in the streets and squares across the country, which lasted from very early until nightfall, there was a celebration of the fall of the government denounced as a “usurper”, but also pain for the death of the two students, and the expectation of what would happen in the following hours. Many came to demonstrate dressed in black, as a sign of mourning for the two students killed during the crackdown on citizen mobilizations.