Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on Friday called for a multiparty dialogue to help resolve her country’s political crisis, saying two months of at times deadly protests against her government had left the nation a “fragile democracy.”
Boluarte became president on Dec. 7 last year. Her predecessor, Pedro Castillo, was impeached and arrested after attempting to dissolve the Peruvian Congress and rule by decree.
However, since that day she has faced calls to resign by protesters, who are also demanding fresh elections.
Photo: Bloomberg
Demonstrations have at times turned violent, and officials on Friday announced a new death, bringing the total number of people killed in clashes between security forces and protesters to 49.
“We are living in a fragile democracy,” said Boluarte, who has refused to resign and failed in a bid to convince Congress to bring forward elections slated for 2026.
“I think it is the most fragile in Latin America, but it is within Peruvians, within us, to strengthen democracy,” Boluarte told reporters at a news conference alongside her Cabinet ministers.
Boluarte is Peru’s sixth president since March 2018 and the first woman to hold the role.
She was Castillo’s vice president before he was ousted and charged with rebellion.
Demonstrations against her rule have been fiercest in poor southern regions with large indigenous populations who view Castillo as one of their own.
Among their other demands are the dissolution of Congress and the formation of a constituent assembly to rewrite the Peruvian constitution, something roundly rejected by the right-wing opposition.
“In search of peace, I openly call all political leaders of every single party, but also the leaders of social and labor organizations, everyone in general, so that we can meet and put the country’s agenda on the table,” Boluarte said.
Boluarte in December called on Congress to bring forward elections, but the parliament rejected the idea in five separate votes, despite an initial vote in favor that was not ratified.
Boluarte said the latest protester who died was a 22-year-old who was on Thursday shot in Apurimac, the region where she herself was born.
“I am very sorry for the death of the citizen in Apurimac yesterday, in that confrontation in which an interprovincial transport bus was set on fire, the toll booth set on fire. My condolences from here to the family,” Boluarte said.
However, she added that some of the street protests rocking the nation “are not peaceful. They come out with sticks, slingshots, rocks, which are also projectiles that cause damage.”
“Not all are marching peacefully,” she said. “They are coming out to generate violence, chaos and terror.”
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS