The president announces the elections for 2024 while groups of protesters take over the Arequipa airport and block roads in eight departments
The mobilizations and riots continued this Monday in Peru as a prelude to a social and, above all, political chaos, which is precipitating with strides. Important highways such as the Pan-American highway were blocked in eight departments in the south and east of the country, protests multiplied in Lima surrounded by tear gas, miners, peasants and teachers began strikes and the Arequipa airport suspended flights after being invaded. by a crowd. Added to the tension over the arrest of former President Pedro Castillo was the anger derived from the death of two young people aged 15 and 18 on Sunday in separate clashes with the Police during the riots and another two this Monday.
Since Castillo was arrested on Wednesday after staging an absurd self-coup, the nation has entered level one of a collapse whose magnitude depends on the president’s announcement to bring forward the presidential elections taking effect. The substitute for the one who was dictator for three hours, Dina Boluarte, has decided to send to Congress the necessary bill to call the elections in April 2024, which implies her resignation to exhaust the mandate in 2026.
A group of supporters of Pedro Castillo during the riots /
Reality has imposed itself on a leadership, that of the first woman to govern Peru, in which almost no one believed due to the unusual and precarious nature of her birth. Alone, without a bench in her condition as an independent expelled from Peru Libre and with the seed of anger in the streets, the president declared this Monday that the call seeks to satisfy “in the broadest way the will of the citizenry” and thus reinstate the social peace.
Aware that the term is long, more than a year ahead, Boluarte recalled that Congress must promote a constitutional adaptation to fit the bill, but he promised to take advantage of that time to implement a law to reform the political system. The legal initiative aims to encourage a more “efficient” and “transparent” Administration, parties “legitimized by citizen participation” and the end of “all practices of corruption.” He invited “all the political forces of the country, civil society and the entire population” to participate in this process to forge “a united, free and socially just Peru.”
A consistent police cordon protects the headquarters of Congress in Lima /
His words contrast at this moment with the reality of the street. Boluarte has declared a state of emergency in several regions in the face of the social outbreak, which began this past Sunday in the Apurímac region and has spread to Arequipa, Tacha, Abancay, Puno, Cusco, Ucalayi, Trujillo and Ica. In Arequipa, a group of protesters took over the airport on Monday for several hours until it could be recovered thanks to the intervention of the Army, in the same way that the Andahuay aerodrome was occupied on Sunday, where fifty police officers and workers ended up detained in the control tower and the terminal.
The Ombudsman’s Office explained that in the last 36 hours the death toll has risen to four. One of the latest deaths was registered this Monday in Arequipa, Peru’s second city, during the intervention of the security forces to recover the airport’s runway. The second victim recorded this day occurred when a march was repelled by riot police in the town of Chincheros, in Apurímac, Boluarte’s birthplace.
Shining Path
The Ministry of the Interior suspects that prominent activists from Movadef, the political organization of Sendero Luminoso, are hiding behind the most violent demonstrations. Several of its leaders have been seen in the protests in the Plaza de San Martín and the Cercado de Lima, in front of the Congress headquarters, heavily guarded by police officers. The Ministry of Defense, for its part, has dismissed all the prefects of the regions and town halls appointed by Pedro Castillo after verifying that several of them have fueled the mobilizations against the Government. A council has also been convened to discuss the alleged police excesses, which have caused dozens of injuries.
Meanwhile, the courts seem to be paving the way for the former president towards speedy criminal proceedings. Immediately after Congress suspended her privileges, which granted her an impeachment trial prior to the judicial one, yesterday the attorney general filed charges against Castillo – who considers herself “kidnapped” and called Boluarte a “usurper” – and former ministers Betssy Chávez, Roberto Sánchez and Willy Huerta for rebellion and conspiracy.
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