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The Peruvian Congress approved on Monday (9) the removal of President Martín Vizcarra for “moral incapacity”, at the end of his second political trial in less than two months. He was reported for taking bribes when he was governor in 2014.
The motion to remove the popular Peruvian president exceeded the 87 votes needed in Congress.
“The resolution that declares the vacancy of the Presidency of the Republic was approved,” declared after the vote the head of Congress, Manuel Merino, who will assume the leadership of the government on Tuesday until the end of the current mandate, which ends on 28 July. 2021.
Merino said the move would be reported immediately to Vizcarra, the president who had record levels of popularity during his 32 months in office.
Vizcarra, 57, had survived an earlier vote aimed at removing him in September, when only 32 of 130 MPs voted to leave, and an attempt to suspend him in 2019.
He denied “unfounded” claims that he took bribes from companies that won public contracts when he was governor of Moquegua, a region in southern Peru. Vizcarra accused Congress of “playing with democracy.”
In the previous lawsuit, he was accused of pressuring two government palace officials to lie about a disputed contract with a singer.
“I emphatically and categorically reject these accusations,” Vizcarra said. “I did not receive any bribery,” he added before Congress, in a session that began at 10:30 am local time (12:30 pm Brasilia time). The president personally made his defense, speaking before the plenary for 51 minutes.
He said that the two contracts in question were designated by an agency of the United Nations (UN) and not by the regional government of Moquegua, and that the complaints against him are based on press reports and not on decisions of the prosecution or the courts.
“Here I am willing to clarify any of the facts that are falsely attributed to me,” he said. “They have not been proven (the facts denounced), nor is there certainty that they have occurred,” he defended himself.
On Sunday, the president had declared in a statement that he was “systematically attacked (…)”, and already assured that he had not committed any act of corruption. In it, the politician also said that his accusers “are generating political instability.”
Polls show that 75% of Peruvians want continuity in government, while Congress faces 59% disapproval, according to France Presse.
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