The Congress of Peru approved this Wednesday by an overwhelming majority the vacancy motion against President Pedro Castillo after he announced the dissolution of the legislative body in a measure that faced immediate rejection.
But the dismissal of Castillo is not new in that country, since Peru experiences repeated political crises since the dismissal of Alberto Fujimori in 2000.
This is the list of the serious political moments that the country has experienced in recent years.
Removal of Alberto Fujimori
On November 21, 2000, after a corruption scandal, Parliament dismissed Alberto Fujimori, president since 1990, for “permanent moral incapacity”, who submitted his resignation a day earlier from Japan where he had fled.
Extradited, he was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for corruption and crimes against humanity. The Constitutional Court ordered his release on March 17, 2022, restoring a presidential pardon that had been annulled.
(Read also: Crisis in Peru: Pedro Castillo, arrested after dissolving Congress)
government crises
In 2003, the centrist president Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency in the face of a wave of social discontent. Part of the opposition and the press demanded his departure “due to incompetence.” The government resigned en bloc.
In 2008, the social democratic president Alan García accepted the resignation of the government after discovering an alleged case of corruption in favor of the Norwegian oil company Discover Petroleum.
On June 6, 2011, Ollanta Humala became the first leftist president in 36 years. A year later, members of his government, criticized for his management of social conflicts (with a balance of 17 deaths), resigned.
In 2015, the head of government Ana Jara was overthrown by a vote of no confidence, the first in 50 years, after a case of espionage.
(Furthermore: Peruvian Armed Forces will not abide by ‘acts contrary to the constitutional order’)
Resignation and impeachment
Elected in 2016, center-right president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski came under investigation for alleged money laundering in the corruption scandal at Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht with kickbacks to politicians in exchange for contracts.
On March 21, 2018, “PPK” resigned on the eve of a likely parliamentary vote to indict him ahead of an impeachment trial. He was placed in pretrial detention and then under house arrest.
Ollanta Humala received preventive detention in 2017, accused of having received three million dollars from Odebrecht during his electoral campaign. Indicted in 2019, he has been on trial, along with his wife, since February 21, 2022.
(Keep reading: Crisis in Peru: Congressmen denounce Castillo’s coup)
Arrest of Keiko Fujimori
Opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former president Alberto, also the subject of an investigation into the Odebrecht case, was arrested in October 2018 and served 16 months in preventive detention, before being released on bail.
In March 2022, thirty years in prison were demanded against him.
a suicide
Suspected in an alleged case of money laundering related to the Odebrecht scandal, the former president Alan Garcia committed suicide in April 2019 before his arrest.
(You can read: The US rejects the “extra-constitutional act” of Pedro Castillo)
another arrest
Also suspected of corruption in this scandal, former President Alejandro Toledo was arrested in 2019 in the United States and then placed under house arrest after serving seven months in jail. The US justice authorized his extradition in September 2021.
Three presidents in five days
In September 2019, the president Martin Vizcarra dissolved the Parliament controlled by the Fujimorist opposition and announced early legislative elections.
Congress responded by suspending him for one year and voting to replace him with the vice president. But military leaders, police officers and regional governors supported the president, and the vice president resigned.
In January 2020, the Fujimoristas lost the legislative elections. Later, in November, Parliament dismissed Vizcarra for “moral incapacity”, amid accusations of alleged bribes received as governor in 2014.
(In other news: ‘Pedro Castillo has been delegitimized’: reactions in Colombia after his arrest)
The head of the Legislature, Manuel Merino, became interim president but resigned after five days, pressured by the mobilizations in the streets and the political class.
The engineer Francisco Sagasti, elected president of the Parliament, assumed the interim presidency.
Subsequently, Pedro Castillo, candidate of a left-wing coalition, won the 2021 presidential elections that pitted him against Keiko Fujimori. His first six months in office were marked by infighting within the government and attacks from the radical right.
the castle era
In December 2021 and then again in March 2022, the opposition-controlled Congress rejected two impeachment requests for “moral incapacity” against Pedro Castillo, in power since July 28. In February 2022, he appointed his fourth government in six months.
In August, he was the subject of a total of six investigations for corruption and influence peddling, an unprecedented situation in Peru.
On October 11, the court filed an appeal for unconstitutionality accusing him of the crime of criminal organization of corruption.
This December 7, Pedro Castillo dissolved Congress a few hours after a motion to remove him was debated. He announced the establishment of an “exception government.”
Hours later he was dismissed by Congress and detained by the authorities of the city of Lima.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
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