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Why is the protest escalating in Peru?

2022-12-13T18:59:20.496Z


The discredit of the entire political class and the succession of presidents denounced for corruption fuel a malaise that began in 2017


Hundreds of protesters demonstrate in the streets of downtown Lima. Aldair Mejía (EFE)

The protests calling for the advancement of general elections and the closure of Congress in Peru since Thursday have spread this Monday to 18 of the 24 regions of the country.

Five days have passed since Pedro Castillo's failed self-coup and the protests have not stopped increasing.

Police repression against peaceful demonstrations and acts of vandalism have caused seven deaths in the south, two of them teenagers and three 18-year-olds.

The new government of Dina Boluarte, close to the opposition majority, has disqualified the mobilizations since Sunday, attributing them to bullies, people paid by

Castillista bureaucrats

or to infiltrators who were part of terrorist organizations that disappeared at the end of the 90s. The contempt of the political class towards the demonstrators has angered the citizens and groups whose presence on the streets is growing every day.

The reasons why Peruvians are protesting against Congress these days are not new.

They come from the year 2017, but they have woken up again with the latest events.

The conservative parliamentary majority – which tried to remove Castillo from the first day of his term – has 86% disapproval, according to a poll at the end of November.

He also chose a Constitutional Court tailored to him and wanted to do the same with the new Ombudsman, but a judicial appeal presented by the union of that entity prevented him.

Congress has lost legitimacy because since 2017 it has denatured the constitutional figures that allow the balance and separation of powers: the presidential vacancy due to permanent moral incapacity, the question of trust and the constitutional denunciation.

The abuse of these mechanisms in battles for small power explains, in large part, why Peru has had six presidents since 2016. The attorney general who took office in July and who has denounced Castillo first for corruption in office ―and now for rebellion and conspiracy- is also related to the opposition majority.

In November, the Institute of Peruvian Studies probed what should happen if Castillo were disbarred.

87% of those surveyed responded that general elections should be held, so that Parliament should not continue once the president was removed.

It is a consensus in the country that the Legislature has dedicated too much time and budget to the formulas to throw the rural teacher out of the Palace, and that in this way it neglected the public interest and the problems that overwhelm the citizens.

Castillo won the elections promising better living conditions for those who have always been discriminated against, especially the rural society ―from which he comes― and the indigenous peoples.

He also offered a Constituent Assembly.

He did nothing of this in 16 months of government, but 27% of Peruvians believed in him and approved of his management.

Perhaps they felt represented because someone like them had reached the Presidency.

But there is another reason why the protest grows.

The first victims of the police repression against the demonstrations in the south are a 15-year-old schoolboy and worker, fatherless;

and an 18-year-old farmer.

Police violence has been broadcast live and direct by local digital media and hundreds of citizens from their windows or rooftops have recorded videos of the disproportionate police force.

The indignation increases in front of what they consider a mistreatment of the institutions that should watch over the democratic system.

This Tuesday, the police searched at six in the morning 59 roads blocked by the mobilizations.

The new government of Dina Boluarte and Congress have not yet read the seriousness of the signs, while analysts and some regional governors suggest an electoral schedule that calms the streets a bit ―because there is still nothing official, although the president spoke of 2024― and an investigation that finds those responsible for the deaths.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-12-13

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