By Franklin Briceño for The Associated Press
LIMA - Peruvian legislators dismissed the president, Martín Vizcarra, on Monday for “permanent moral incapacity”, and accused him of receiving bribes, in an act that did not occur two decades ago.
With 105 votes in favor, 19 against and 4 abstentions, the Congress - elected in January to replace the one dissolved by Vizcarra in September 2019 - removed the president from power.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic,
parliamentarians accuse Vizcarra of receiving more than $ 630,000 in bribes for two infrastructure works tendered when Vizcarra was
regional governor between 2011 and 2014.
[Evo Morales returns to Bolivia while the new president delays the announcement of his cabinet]
The future of the country is uncertain and even experts differ on what should happen.
On the one hand, the lawyer Natale Amprimo affirms that Vizcarra must hand over power to the president of Parliament, Manuel Merino, who must become the new president.
Luis Arce is sworn in as the new president of Bolivia
Nov. 9, 2020
On the other hand,
the constitutionalist Omar Cairo affirms that Vizcarra must continue in the position and present a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court
to "declare the decision of Congress null and void", because the request for dismissal has not specified or detailed "what the permanent moral incapacity ”, which Vizcarra is charged with.
Manuel Merino is a 57-year-old agricultural businessman who represents in Parliament the northern Tumbes region, on the border with Ecuador.
Merino, who studied Agronomy, has already been a congressman for Tumbes for the periods 2001-2006 and 2011-2016 for the Popular Action party.
In September, days before the first unsuccessful presidential vacancy request, Merino consulted with the military chiefs to announce that Congress was going to carry out an impeachment process.
Days later, consulted by the press, he said that his calls were to "reassure" the soldiers.
The parliamentarians accused Vizcarra of having received bribes
for granting the construction of an irrigation project and a hospital in the Moquegua region where he was governor.
Some legislators who voted for his removal, such as Cecilia García, from the Podemos Peru party, called him a liar who "does not even deserve to receive the blessing of every morning light."
Erwin Tito, from the Fuerza Popular party led by the opposition Keiko Fujimori, commented that the Government administered the pandemic in a “genocidal” way with hospitals without infrastructure, little oxygen and few medicines.
Vizcarra defended himself earlier and told Congress that a new impeachment request against him is based on unsubstantiated statements and that his departure could lead to chaos in Peru.
Between boos,
Vizcarra reminded 68 of the 130 parliamentarians who also face charges for various crimes before the prosecution.
“Would they also have to drop their charges for it?
Without the tax investigation having been concluded? ”, He told them.
Lawmakers backed their accusations in an unfinished tax investigation in which managers of local construction companies, seeking to serve fewer years in jail for their denunciations, accuse Vizcarra of receiving the money.
The would-be collaborators have yet to present conclusive evidence.
The "permanent moral incapacity" is a confusing cause in the Constitution
that, according to the experts, is so wide that it can be used according to the convenience of the one who raises it.
Vizcarra came to power in 2018 to replace the resigning Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, of whom he was vice president.
Kuczynski became president in 2016 with a bench of 18 lawmakers.
When Vizcarra came to power, the ruling party stopped supporting him.
With the closure of Congress in 2019 and the new Parliament, the president was left without legislators.
Since 2017, four presidential impeachment attempts have accumulated in Parliament
: two against Kuczynski - who resigned from the presidency in the middle of one of those processes - and another two against Vizcarra.
Political analyst Alonso Cárdenas commented that now in Peru it was easier to remove a president than a mayor.
"If you want to remove the mayor of Lima, you need just over a million signatures, if you want to remove a president only 87 votes in Congress," said Cárdenas, professor of public management at the Antonio Ruíz de Montoya University.
The last presidents before Kuczynski - Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), Alan García (2006-2011) and Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) - had
solid parliamentary benches that prevented opponents from adding 87 votes of the 130 that Parliament has and thus they could conclude their mandates
.
All of them, including Kuczynski, were investigated for alleged corruption with the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
Toledo is imprisoned in the United States awaiting extradition to Peru, García committed suicide minutes before being detained by the police, while Humala and Kuczynski are in house arrest awaiting trial.
The political crisis in Peru occurs while the new coronavirus pandemic has left more than 922,333 infected and 34,879 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Science and Systems Engineering and one of the most profound economic impacts globally. The World Bank has predicted a 12% drop in Peru's Gross Domestic Product for this year.