The Peruvian Congress has accepted Manuel Merino’s resignation as President and has already decided who will succeed him

The unicameral Congress of Peru accepted the resignation of the President of the Republic, Manuel Merino, and he was set to debate who should take his place after the first in line, Luis Valdez, also announced his resignation.

Before ordering a small intermission room, Valdez proposed a new board of directors for parliament led by Rocío Silva Santisteban, who, if approved, would become the first woman to lead the Peruvian executive.

The entire Congress met this afternoon to consider Merino’s resignation – which he accepted with a single vote against and without abstention – and to nominate his successor, according to national television station TV Peru.

Merino had announced his resignation shortly after noon, five days after taking office, amid massive protests against him and after Congress. urge him to leave office under threat of dismissal anyway.

“I want to salute the whole country that I am resigning,” Merino said in a televised message to the country, which sparked a celebration in the streets of Lima, in the aftermath of the violent crackdown on the protests that left two dead and two more of a hundred wounded.

The elected will be the third president in less than a week, in a country hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and economic recession, which plunged into a political crisis when Parliament dismissed popular President Martín Vizcarra on Monday in a blitz trial.

Merino said so there is no “power vacuum”, the 18 ministers to whom he was sworn in on Thursday will remain in their posts temporarily, although virtually all resigned after the crackdown on protesters on Saturday.

The protests against the withdrawal of Vizcarra and his replacement by Merino had last night the first two deaths, at least one in a confrontation with the police.

“Almenara hospital received (from the Red Cross) four people: three wounded and the body of a 25-year-old”, who had attended the protests, Alberto Huerta of the ombudsman’s office told reporters. from Lima.

“The victim had sores on his face and scalp, according to the doctor,” the official said.

The newspaper Trade identified the victim as Jack Pintado Sánchez.

Hours later, the second death was confirmed, of a 24-year-old man identified as Inti Sotelo Camargo, who arrived with a serious chest injury at Grau hospital. According to statements by the victim’s father and brother to the media, the young man arrived at the medical establishment dead.

The health ministry reported this afternoon that at least 107 people had been treated for “different types of injuries” produced during the protests last night, of which 34 were still hospitalized.

This morning, the National Human Rights Coordinator released a list of citizens not located after the demonstrations this Saturday.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed on its Twitter account its concern and its rejection of the repression and the lack of data on the fate of certain demonstrators, whose situation was unknown.