Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has rushed home from Ecuador to avoid further impeachment proceedings after his plane was prevented from taking off by weather, according to local media.
In a country marked by chronic institutional instability, the head of state risked violating the Constitution if he did not return to Peru before midnight Friday (05:00 GMT Saturday).
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It was at this time that the deadline set by Parliament for the leftist president for his visit to Ecuador expired, where he chaired, with his Ecuadorian counterpart Guillermo Lasso, a binational council of ministers in the town of Loja, 264 km away. from the Peruvian border.
Exceeding this deadline would have given a pretext to the opposition, majority in Parliament, to launch a new procedure of impeachment for “presidential vacancy” against Pedro Castillo, the Constitution not providing for an exception for meteorological reasons.
Facing the plane, the head of state traveled by car the five-hour journey to arrive in time at the Peruvian border, at the post of Tumbes finally reached one hour before midnight, according to local media.
The head of state, who took office nine months ago, has already faced two impeachment attempts by Parliament.
Since December 2017, parliamentarians have presented six impeachment proceedings against a sitting president.
One led to the early resignation of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (right) in 2018 and another to the dismissal of Martín Vizcarra (centre) in 2020.