Protests and injuries continue in Peru as Congress tries again to define early elections

The Peruvian assembly members seek a “prudent way out” of the social and political crisis and approved this Monday to reconsider the vote on early elections, after on Friday rejecting the constitutional reform that cut the presidential and legislative mandate and allowed elections to be called in October of this year.

For her part, President Dina Boluarte put more pressure on Sunday night by calling on Congress to advance the elections, otherwise she will promote constitutional reforms so that those elections are imposed, she said in a message to the country.

“Vote for Peru in favor of the country, advancing the elections to 2023 and let’s say to all of Peru with the highest responsibility that we are all leaving,” he said.

On the outskirts of Lima, in the popular neighborhood of Huaycán, hundreds of people marched with a giant banner that said “Not one more death, Dina resigns now”, and they tried to mobilize to the center of the capital, where the presidential palace is located. Parliament and courts of justice, and the scene of violent clashes between hooded men and the police.

Dozens of soldiers traveled to Ica, 250 km south of Lima, to support the police to unblock the Panamericana Sur highway and guarantee transit. Roadblocks have caused shortages of basic goods and fuel in several provinces.

“The mobilizations are going to continue because there are no signs that the Executive is resigning,” Gerónimo López, union leader of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP), told AFP.

The political and social crisis, which has already left 48 dead in southern cities and in Lima in seven weeks, shows no sign of a solution.

The political power has been unable to find a response to the demands of the population, especially rural people in the southern Andes with an indigenous majority, historically neglected, who had bet on improving their living conditions with the arrival of the leftist Pedro Castillo to the presidency ( 2021-2022), dismissed and detained on December 7 after trying to dissolve Congress.

Boluarte, then vice president, assumed the reins of government.

protests do not stop

The president acknowledged that the crisis in the streets has worsened with a scenario of violent protests and blockades, which has even led in areas such as Puerto Maldonado, in the Peruvian jungle, to some inhabitants turning to charcoal or firewood for cooking in the absence of gas, denounced those affected to local media.

Congress had already voted an advance of the elections for April 2024.

On Sunday, the president of Parliament, José Williams, a retired right-wing soldier, first in line of succession in the event of the resignation of the Peruvian president, also asked parliamentarians on his Twitter account to “reflect responsibly on the decision to be made” on monday.

The political discussion coincides with the wake of Víctor Santisteban, 55, a protester who died on Saturday in the most violent protest in Lima since the beginning of the social revolt in December, when he received “the impact of a blunt object on his head ”, according to the medical report. (YO)