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Peru's President Pedro Castillo: a race against time
Photo: Alan Santos / Palacio Planalto / dpa
After his plane was prevented from taking off, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo thwarted opposition plans to oust him with a five-hour drive.
The left-wing head of state made it back to Peru in time from a foreign visit to Ecuador on Friday evening - and thus averted another impeachment procedure.
Castillo chaired a binational ministerial meeting with Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso.
The meeting took place in Ecuador, in the city of Loja, 264 kilometers from the Peruvian border.
After his plane couldn't take off due to bad weather, Castillo began a race against time.
He had to make the return journey by car.
His car reached the Peruvian border around 11 p.m., local media reported.
At midnight, the deadline set by the Peruvian Congress for his stay in Ecuador would have expired.
A late return would have allowed the opposition to launch another impeachment trial against Castillo.
Castillo, who has been in office for just nine months, has already survived two impeachment trials in the opposition-controlled Congress.
Peru has been in a political crisis for years.
In November 2020, the country had three presidents in five days.
Most recent leaders have held office for less than a year.
The opposition, which has 80 of the 130 seats in parliament, recently accused Castillo of "moral incompetence" and tolerating corruption in his inner circle.
Castillo had rejected this.
The former village school teacher was sworn in as president at the end of July 2021 after an extremely narrow election victory and weeks of legal disputes with the defeated right-wing populist Keiko Fujimori.
Since then, the government of the left-wing politician has been in a permanent power struggle with parliament.
mmq/AFP
