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.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS