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The Peruvian Congress approved on Friday (11) the opening of impeachment against President Martín Vizcarra. He faces a serious political crisis after the publication of audios in which he asks attendees to lie in a parliamentary investigation.
The recording shows Vizcarra speaking with two advisers about the visits of Richard Cisneros, a musician and former government aide, to the presidential palace. They would testify in an investigation into this former employee.
“Needless to say, he went in twice,” Vizcarra asks. “What is clear is that we are all involved in this investigation,” adds the president, in the audios.
Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra during a televised speech – Photo: Andrés Valle / Peruvian Presidency / AFP
Approval of the admissibility of the impeachment received 65 votes in favor of the opening and only six against, in addition to 24 abstentions. Congressmen are expected to debate and vote on the possible departure of Vizcarra from the Peruvian presidency next Friday, September 18.
Richard Cisneros, known as Richard Swing, is a singer hired by the government as a speaker and presenter.
The case exploded in May, when the press discovered that the Ministry of Culture had offered allegedly irregular contracts of $ 10,000 (about R $ 53,000) to Cisneros, an artist little known in the local media, amid the new coronavirus pandemic.
In a video posted Friday, Vizcarra said he would not resign. For the president, the only legal issue that falls on the audios is what he calls “the use of clandestine recordings.” However, he did not deny the content of the dialogues.
“I am not going to deny the conversation, but it was an internal coordination that occurs in any institution, a way of clarifying what was happening in the framework of the investigations,” said Vizcarra.
Political crisis in Peru
Facade of the Peruvian Congress in Lima – Photo: Guadalupe Pardo / Reuters
Vizcarra assumed the presidency of Peru in March 2018, after the resignation of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, known by the acronym PPK, involved in the scandals of the Brazilian contractor Odebrecht in the neighboring country.
Last year, Vizcarra found himself in the middle of a clash with Congress, then controlled by the opposition. After a mess over a reform in the judicial system, the Peruvian president decided to close Parliament and call new elections, a maneuver provided for in the Peruvian Constitution.
The parliamentarians tried to remove Vizcarra and even nominated the vice president Mercedes Araós, who took an oath. She, however, abandoned the maneuver to remove the president from office and requested his resignation. In January, Peruvians elected new parliamentarians.
Other Peruvian presidents have been or have had serious charges of corruption:
- Alan García (1985-1990, 2006-2011) – investigated for irregular campaign financing, money laundering and influence peddling; he died after shooting himself in the head when police came to his home to arrest him;
- Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) – entered the list of those accused of corruption and money laundering because of a pharaonic work;
- Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) – detained for nine months and released after appeal by his lawyers, under investigation for irregular campaign financing;
- Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) (2016-2018) – resigned in March 2018 and was preliminarily arrested in March 2019.
The list of Peruvian politicians in trouble with the law also includes opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, also accused of human rights violations while in power. Keiko spent three months in prison this year for corruption in the Odebrecht case.
