Peru lives the third day of protests against the interim Government and the concentration of powers

Clashes between the police and protesters on Tuesday night in Lima.Aldair Mejía / EFE

Peru faces the third day of protests against the interim government of Manuel Merino and against the Congress that on Monday dismissed now former president Martín Vizcarra, whom the Prosecutor's Office is investigating for allegedly receiving bribes when he was regional governor in 2014. In Lima, the Protesters, mainly young people, remained in the streets for 16 hours despite abuses by the National Police, which fired pellets into the bodies of citizens who carried signs of "Merino is not my president", "Usurper Congress" or chanted these slogans in the center of the capital.

Several human rights organizations warned against excesses.

The officers also took people who did not participate in the protests, simply because they were there, to the police station.

Given that Merino did not appoint any minister on his first day in office and the deposed Cabinet resigned, the day passed amid clashes between citizens and agents: the Executive was already dissolved, but the Prosecutor's Office was not in the streets or in offices either. police to contain reports of assaults and irregularities.

For example, a 14-year-old adolescent detained in the demonstrations has not yet been released and her mother is prevented from entering the Alfonso Ugarte police station.

The point of the rallies in Lima is the Plaza San Martín, but in at least 15 other cities there are similar demonstrations by those who do not feel represented by Congress and consider the removal of Vizcarra illegitimate, who was fired by Parliament with 105 votes for “ permanent moral incapacity ”.

80% of the citizens who resist accepting the transitional government are young people who defend their constitutional right to protest; however, the police expelled them from the squares and streets of the capital as if they were committing a crime.

“Long live Peru,” some shouted when the agents removed them from Plaza San Martín on Tuesday night.

At the Monserrate police station, where there were 25 detainees, the agents prevented the work of human rights defense lawyers and detained the lawyer Carlos Rodríguez, who asked to read the records of people arbitrarily taken to the police headquarters.

As in Monserrate, there were no prosecutors in two other police stations in the center, said Sandra de la Cruz, from the National Human Rights Coordinator.

"The policemen stop, they make the minutes themselves, and they point out that we don't have to be here," added lawyer Mar Pérez, from the same organization, on a radio station.

The National Association of Journalists reported Wednesday that at least 16 photojournalists and reporters "have been attacked by the police" while covering Tuesday's protests.

Amnesty International called on the authorities to "put respect for human rights at the center of their immediate response and public policies," and recalled that the role of the security forces "must be to protect the population, respecting the right to peaceful protest and that of Justice to investigate all acts of violence and establish the corresponding criminal responsibilities ”.

Around midnight, a group of audiovisual artists carried out a lighting intervention on the Miraflores boardwalk, similar to those of

during the social outbreak in Santiago de Chile.

"Dignity", "Coup Congress", "Peru 2020: Trash Congress", were some of the messages projected on buildings.

Weights and counterweights

The Transparency Civil Association released on Wednesday morning a statement that warns about the concentration of power in the Executive and Congress by the groups that deposed Vizcarra, and the violation of the right to protest.

"The Government was born with problems of legitimacy and with a legality that must be settled in the Constitutional Court," indicates the body, which also noted as one of five immediate risks "the weakening of the system of checks and balances within the State, which opens a space for arbitrary and demagogic positions ”.

This civil society body also warns of the lack of guarantees in the process of electing the new magistrates of the Constitutional Court.

Six of the seven justices must be replaced because their terms have expired, and the current Congress has designed a rapid selection process to place like-minded candidates whose political leaders have problems with the law.

Congress has scheduled a session this Thursday to continue the review of candidates for the Constitutional Court.

On the other hand, the Parliament's Education Commission has scheduled for this Wednesday a modification to the university reform law and the creation of new public universities.

Both measures have been questioned because the progress that Peru has made in higher education have been considered an obstacle, since it has eradicated some private universities that cheated their students due to the low quality of education offered.

After noon, the lawyer Antero Flores Aráoz, a former minister of the second government of Alan García, and a representative of the most conservative right in the South American country, will assume as president of the Council of Ministers.

Asked by a radio station about the measures he will take to guarantee university reform, he said that since he had not yet appointed Minister of Education, he could not comment.

High popular rejection of Congress

The removal of the president is one of many measures that have been adopted, mainly by the three benches that make up the majority of Congress, and whose political leaders are being investigated for corruption or other crimes, or are in prison, and who are accused of using Congress to benefit sectors linked to corrupt schemes.

In mid-October, disapproval of the Peruvian Parliament reached 77%, according to Ipsos Peru, and 68%, according to a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies.

The low approval is given despite the populist proposals of Parliament, which approved several bills during the pandemic for the Executive to place more money in the hands of citizens affected by the economic crisis that has hit Peru due to the three months of confinement between March and June.

On the other hand, Merino and its allies from Unión para el Perú and Podemos Perú have promoted and summarily approved a regulation for the election of new magistrates of the Constitutional Court “tailored”, that is, they have accepted candidates whom they could influence, due to his little ethical solvency and weak professional trajectory.