Peru lawmakers oust president after dissolving Congress

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo dissolved Congress and called for new legislative elections, but lawmakers vetoed the decree and voted to replace him with the vice president.

As lawmakers prepare to debate a third attempt to remove him from office, Mr. Castillo is trying to pre-empt it. The Office of the State Ombudsman called his move a coup.

Lawmakers then voted 101-6, with 10 abstentions, to remove him for “permanent moral incapacity.”

Shortly before the vote, Mr Castillo announced he was forming a new emergency government and called on the next round of lawmakers to create a new constitution for the Andean nation.

In a televised address, he said he would rule by decree until then and ordered a curfew starting Wednesday night.

Mr Castillo also announced he would make changes to the leadership of the judiciary, police and constitutional court. The head of the Peruvian army subsequently resigned, along with four ministers, including those in charge of foreign affairs and the economy.

When his opponents in Congress tried a third time to remove him, the president acted.

After years of democracy, Peru is in the midst of a constitutional breakdown that “can only be described as a coup,” the Ombudsman’s Office, an autonomous government body, said in a statement ahead of the congressional vote.

The office demanded that Mr. Castillo resign and surrender to judicial authorities.

“Mr Castillo must remember that he was not only elected president of the republic, but also that the people elected representatives for public service,” the statement said. “Castillo’s actions disregarded the wishes of the people and were invalid.”

Congress voted for Vice President Dina Boluarte to be president. She rejected Mr. Castillo’s move, saying it “exacerbated the political and institutional crisis that Peruvian society must overcome with strict adherence to the law”.

Ms Boluarte, a 60-year-old lawyer, will become the first woman to hold the presidency of Peru in more than 200 years as an independent republic. Bilingual in Spanish and Quechua, she was on the same ticket when voters chose Mr Castillo in July 2021, and also served as minister of development and social inclusion.

Peru’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and national police have rejected the constitutionality of his dissolution of Congress.

In an unusual midnight address on state television ahead of the vote, Mr. Castillo said he would never tarnish “my good name as an honest and exemplary parent who, like millions of Peruvians, is honest every day. to build a future for their families”.

The farmer-turned-president said he was paying for his inexperienced mistakes, but a branch of Congress “had my removal as their only agenda item because they never accepted the election results and you, My dear Peruvians, it’s up to your vote”.

Mr Castillo, whose government came to power in July 2021, has denied corruption charges against him, saying they were based on “rumors from people who were trying to mitigate punishment for alleged crimes by abusing my trust in an attempt to Involve me without proof.”

Federal prosecutors are investigating half a dozen cases against him, most of them alleged corruption, on the grounds that he used his power to profit from public works.

A power struggle continues in the Peruvian capital as the Andes and its thousands of small farms struggle to survive the worst drought in half a century. Without rain, farmers can’t grow potatoes, and dead grass can’t feed herds of sheep, alpacas, llamas and llamas.

To make matters worse, bird flu has killed at least 18,000 seabirds and infected at least one poultry producer, endangering chickens and turkeys raised for traditional holiday meals.

The government also confirmed that the country has suffered a fifth wave of Covid-19 infections in the past week. Since the start of the pandemic, 4.3 million Peruvians have been infected and 217,000 have died.

According to polls, Mr Castillo has three times the support of Congress. A survey by the Peruvian Institute last month found that 86 percent of Congress disapproved and just 10 percent approved, while the president was 61 percent unfavorable and 31 percent approved of his performance.

While a majority in Lima disapproves of Mr. Castillo and wants him to step down, Peruvians in other cities and in rural communities in the interior want him to finish out his presidency and deliver on his promises. Many Peruvians want Congress closed.

But with few sure votes in Congress, he has failed to deliver on promises to fight corruption, raise taxes on mining, rewrite the constitution and go after so-called monopolies that raise gas and drug prices.

Mr Castillo, the first president in the country’s 200-year history to come from an impoverished farming community, took office last year without any political experience.

During his one and a half years in office, he changed the cabinet five times, ran away 60 different cabinet officials, and paralyzed various government agencies.