Martín Vizcarra, a stone’s throw from the prison | The old meadows …

From Lima. Former President Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020) is on the brink. He faces his most difficult hour as prison has become a virtual threat. Your future is in the hands of a judge. In the middle of an election campaign and less than a month before the elections, Peruvians are eagerly awaiting a court ruling that could jail the former president and now congressional candidate for corruption. Judge María Alvarez will decide whether or not to send the former president into preventive detention, as requested by the prosecution for a period of 18 months. The magistrate extended the suspension by postponing to this Thursday the virtual hearing which began on Wednesday and which lasted several hours.

The request for preventive detention is made within the framework of a process of allegedly collecting bribes by Vizcarra from two construction companies for 2.3 million soles (around 650 thousand dollars at the current exchange rate, but that the exchange rate at the time these bribes were allegedly agreed and made is equivalent to approximately $ 800,000). The case is at the stage of the tax investigation. The prosecution attributes the charges of aggravated collusion, bribery and unlawful association to Vizcarra, and stresses that there is a risk that the former president will obstruct the process and a risk that he will use his contacts to request the asylum, for which he requested his arrest.

For the same charges for which his preventive detention is currently requested, Vizcarra was deposed by Congress last November, while its popularity was around 60%. This dismissal triggered massive protests, but in the streets, the proclamations were not in favor of the defense of Vizcarra, which was to be investigated and possibly tried, but in rejection of a corrupt political class who sought to take advantage of the situation to seize power, as it effectively did so for a few days, until the protests toppled Vizcarra’s replacement and representative of this discredited political class, the ultraconservative legislator, in less than a week. Manuel Merino, who has been replaced by the current president, Francisco Sagasti.

The charges against Vizcarra relate to events that occurred before he assumed the presidency, so a preliminary hearing is not required in Congress to prosecute him for these events. He is accused of collecting bribes for the construction of a hospital and irrigation works when he was governor, between 2011 and 2014, from Moquegua, a small region located about a thousand kilometers south of Lima.

The owner of the Obrainsa company, Elard Tejada, told the prosecution that he paid Vizcarra a million soles to resume irrigation works in Moquegua. On the other hand, senior executives of the construction company ICCGSA said they had given the governor of Moquegua 1.3 million soles as a bribe to win the tender for the construction of a regional hospital. Prosecutor Germán Juárez, in charge of the case, presented these testimonies as the basis for his accusation. He also published a series of phone calls between Vizcarra and the executives of these two companies on dates which, according to the prosecutor, coincide with the withdrawals of money from the accounts of these companies for amounts compatible with the bribes. wine reported.

Businessmen turned into prosecutors who accuse Vizcarra of collecting bribes are prosecuted for joining the “construction club”, trained by major construction companies to distribute public works against payment of bribes, and traded their accusing testimony for legal advantages.

The lawyer of the former president, Fernando Ugaz, questioned the validity of the testimony of prosecution witnesses, which, he said, were not corroborated by other sources. He also rejected as evidence the telephone calls presented by the prosecutor. The defense of the former president recalled that the calls for tenders for these two works were carried out and awarded by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and not by the regional government chaired by Vizcarra.Therefore, the payment of these alleged bribes to the then governor, who was not the one who decided which companies would donate the work, is not explained. Lawyer Ugaz assured that there was no proof of payments to Vizcarra.

The prosecution responded by noting that UNOPS had recommended the winner of the tender, but the final decision was made by the regional government led by Vizcarra. But the truth is that in both cases, the regional government of Moquegua only upheld the UNOPS recommendation. Officials from both construction companies said Vizcarra asked them to pay the reported bribes to confirm the UNOPS recommendation, which the former president denies.

When he was ousted from the presidency by Congress, Vizcarra stressed that the testimonies of the businessmen who accuse him are “a revenge” of those who made up the “construction club” for, according to his version, to have reduced under his government the surcharges that these companies charged for public works.

Vizcarra intends to join Congress and has been accused of wanting to become a parliamentarian to cover himself with the immunity the post would give him. Vizcarra-backed presidential candidate former Fujimori MP Daniel Salaverry appears to be relegated to the polls with less than three percent. But at Somos Peru’s congressional list led by Vizcarra is doing better and the election of the former president seems highly likely, according to polls, but his popularity has been hit by this corruption accusation and the recent vaccination scandal. VIP and secrecy. inoculation of the former president and his wife before coronavirus vaccines reach the countryIt remains to be seen how that, and a possible court order for his arrest, will affect his candidacy in the home stretch of his campaign. But now Vizcarra is playing a bigger game, his freedom.