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The Peruvian president, Martín Vizcarra, who made the fight against corruption his main banner, sailing against the current of the political class, was removed by Congress on Monday during a second political trial in less than two months.
Invoking adherence to truth and transparency, Vizcarra hoped to come out of the new lightning impeachment trial in Congress for alleged “moral incapacity”, after denying that he had received bribes for public works contracts in 2014, when he was governor of the southern region of Moquegua.
“I have not collected any bribes,” he said, defending himself personally before the plenary, without resorting to a lawyer.
The tenacity and honesty that he preached helped him to get rid of the first impeachment process, which had him on the ropes on September 18 for apparently inducing two collaborators in investigations of Parliament and the Prosecutor’s Office to lie over questioned contracts with a singer.
Although his image was damaged and his power weakened, he survived to face the problems that mark Peru’s agenda: pandemic, economic recession, an outbreak of diphtheria and the April 2021 elections, in which he cannot be a candidate.
His opponents in Congress allege that he would have received bribes when he was governor, in a case investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office since 2018, but which only now gained notoriety a few weeks ago for press reports.
Vizcarra denied those payments and attributed the motion against him to a maneuver to delay the general elections of April 2021, and extend the term of the current Congress.
Without a political party or bench in a Congress controlled by a populist opposition, Vizcarra failed to build bridges with parliament.
However, the main reason why he did not step aside was because of the support of the people: nine out of ten Peruvians preferred that he complete his term and be investigated later by the prosecution, according to a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies.
In 32 months in office, the center-right president had record levels of approval for his reforms to prevent corruption in a country where the four previous presidents were under investigation for the scandal at the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
His dismissal was described as a “coup in disguise” by the popular former mayor and aspiring to the presidency in 2021 George Forsyth, while the Archbishop of Lima, Carlos Castillo, stated that Congress lacked a “sense of proportion,” which which is “something very serious.
“What has happened in Congress is shameful and outrageous,” said former leftist presidential candidate Verónika Mendoza.
“Firm against corruption”
“We will be very firm in the fight against corruption and against all those actions that are at odds by law,” Vizcarra told Congress when he took office on March 23, 2018.
Those words would be a kind of declaration of principles, turned into his main support to choose his battles appealing to the “indignant” of the street.
57 years old, this provincial engineer without ties to the Lima elite took office until July 2021 to complete the five-year term of the resigned Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, of whom he was vice president.
Simple and meticulous
“He is much more careful in managing his image” and “much more politically located,” analyst Fernando Tuesta told AFP, when comparing him to Kuczynski.
Those who know him highlight the simplicity of Vizcarra and assure that he is a meticulous manager, careful with public spending and convinced that development begins with education.
Married to Maribel Díaz, a school teacher, the couple have four children.
In 2008 he led a protest in Moquegua for ten days against the mining company Southern, demanding a better distribution of the social funds generated by mining for that region marked by inequalities.
That removed from anonymity this graduate of the National University of Engineering, in Lima, who made a living with his construction company.
Three years later, he entered politics and was elected Governor of Moquegua (2011-2014). One of its main achievements was to make it one of the regions with the highest GDP investment in education.
In 2016, Kuczynski invited him to run for the first vice presidency to attract the vote of southern Peru.
He was born in Lima on March 22, 1963 after his mother’s medical emergency, but grew up in Moquegua. His parents named him in honor of the Peruvian saint Martín de Porres, to whom they entrusted him when he almost died of a lung complication shortly after birth.
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