Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kucyznski on Thursday scrambled for his political survival as opponents demanded he resign over revelations of decade-old payments from a Brazilian construction company at the center of Latin America’s biggest graft scandal.
In a televised address to the nation shortly before midnight on Thursday, Kuczynski offered his first explanation of the US$782,000 that his consulting firm received between 2004 and 2007 from consortiums led by Odebrecht, much of them while he was a Cabinet minister in a previous government that awarded the Brazilian company a major highway contract.
Surrounded by his Cabinet, the president he had no management role in the consulting firm, Westfield Capital, while in public office and all of the payments were for contracts signed by a business partner.
“I’m not running and I’m not hiding because I have no reason to,” the former Wall Street investor said, vowing to produce his personal banking records for public scrutiny. “I’m not going to abdicate my honor, my values or my responsibilities as president of all Peruvians.”
Kuczynski’s defiant address ended a 24-hour period of political turbulence that started on Wednesday as opposition lawmakers presented documents provided by Odebrecht showing payments to Westfield as well as US$4 million to another firm, First Capital, owned by the same business partner.
Peru’s two biggest parties, which between them have enough seats in congress to remove Kuczynski, said lawmakers could initiate impeachment proceedings unless Kuczynski steps down. “The country right now can’t afford the luxury of having a president that is so questioned,” Popular Force party spokesman Daniel Salaverry said.
As recently as last month, Kuczynski had denied having any professional or political ties to Odebrecht while at the same time wagging his finger at three predecessors accused of taking bribes from the company.
Authorities across Latin America have moved swiftly to charge politicians accused of taking about US$800 million in bribes that Odebrecht acknowledged paying in a plea agreement last year with the US Department of Justice. The graft including about US$29 million paid in Peru during the 2001 to 2006 administration of former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo and two of his successors.
Kuczynski served as Toledo’s minister of economy and finance, and prime minister.
Kuczynski spent most of Thursday holed up in the presidential palace with top aides trying to devise a strategy to fight back.
As rumors swirled he would resign, Peru’s stock exchange — until recently the darling of foreign investors — had its biggest tumble in two years, falling 3.5 percent.
Kuczynski, 79, was elected president last year after a lucrative career in business.
He campaigned on a pledge to clean up corruption and provide much-needed stability in one of South America’s most politically volatile nations.
Kuczynski said all of his earnings from Westfield were duly reported to Peru’s tax authority. Of the US$4 million in payments to First Capital, he said only a single transaction, for which he held up an invoice, was for financial consulting services he provided the firm in 2012 as part of its work on an Odebrecht-owned irrigation project.
“I’m an honest man and have been all my life,” he said.
Peruvians are unlikely to be convinced by his reassurances that he did nothing wrong, analysts said.
Harvard University political scientist Steve Levitsky said Kuczynski was already a weak president with little legislative or popular support before the corruption allegations, which had been quietly dogging him for some time, broke into the open.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
RSS