Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra on Sunday offered to cut short his term and hold elections to end what he called an institutional crisis.
He said in a speech to the Peruvian Congress that this would also involve shortening the term of the legislature.
As it stands, general elections are scheduled for July next year.
Vizcarra’s proposal comes with Peru’s executive and legislative branches locked in a massive power struggle.
The president said that his idea would need to be passed by the opposition-controlled legislature, and then approved in a referendum.
“The voice of the people must be heard,” Vizcarra told lawmakers, as some cheered him and others yelled insults, in a session on Peru’sIndependence Day.
“Peru is screaming out for a new beginning,” Vizcarra said.
If Congress agrees to the president’s proposal, the referendum would be held at the end of the year and the elections “on the second Sunday of April 2020,” Peruvian Minister of Justice Vicente Zeballos said.
Shaken by a string of high-profile corruption scandals, Peruvians overwhelmingly approved Vizcarra’s anti-corruption reforms in a referendum in December last year, but he has repeatedly clashed with Congress, which is dominated by the Popular Force party led by Keiko Fujimori, who is herself in prison pending trial on corruption charges linked to Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Vizcarra had originally threatened to dissolve Congress and force new legislative elections in June, unless lawmakers backed his anti-graft proposals.
He won a vote of confidence in Congress at the time, and the government was expected to begin negotiations with the opposition over introducing the reforms.
The reforms ranged from campaign finance, to limiting immunity from prosecution that lawmakers enjoy, and blocking those convicted in court from seeking office, as the South American nation of 33 million sought to emerge from the shadow of Latin America’s biggest graft scandal.
The proposal to lift legislative immunity turned into the source of the latest conflict between Peru’s executive and legislative branches; Vizcarra proposed giving the Peruvian Supreme Court power to decide whether to strip a legislator of the protection.
Congress, which holds the power to lift judicial immunity, rejected the idea.
Vizcarra’s proposal to move up elections was met with praise from businesses and analysts, as well as leftist members of Congress, but his opponents accused him of creating too much uncertainty in the government.
“The president is looking to shake up Congress, because there has been no improvement in investment or development in the country,” said Cecilia Chacon, a Fujimori-allied lawmaker.
“The president has nothing to show the people, so he has created a media show to keep getting air time,” she said.
Under Peru’s constitution, Vizcarra cannot run in the next election.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS