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During the day of this Sunday the Congress of Peru carried out a vote to determine if, in a single list, a board of directors could be appointed after the dismissal of Martín Vizcarra and the resignation of the interim Manuel Merino, who had to leave office after extensive days of violence in the country.
After several hours of voting, Congress failed to obtain the votes to establish the list headed by Rocío Silva Santiesteban (Broad Front) as president; Francisco Sagasti (Purple Party) in the first vice presidency; Luis Roel Alva (Popular Action) in the second vice-presidency and Yessica Apaza Quispe (UPP) in the third vice-presidency.
After this failure in the voting, in which the list only received 42 votes in favor, that is, less than the number of congressmen the list represents, and which had 52 votes against (with 25 abstentions), the session was suspended and a Board of Spokespersons was called.
All this occurs because the President of Peru, Manuel Merino, resigned this Sunday five days after taking power, which sparked a celebration in the Peruvian streets after several days of protests harshly repressed by the police, in which there were two dead and a hundred wounded.
“I want to let the entire country know that I am submitting my irrevocable resignation as president of the Republic,” the fleeting president declared on television.
Merino had replaced the popular president Martín Vizcarra on Tuesday, a day after he was dismissed by Congress for a case of alleged corruption.
Congress must now appoint a new president to pacify the country. It will be the third in less than a week, in a nation hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic recession, which plunged into a political crisis after Vizcarra’s removal.
Merino, a 59-year-old center-rightist, said that in order to avoid a “power vacuum,” the 18 ministers he was sworn in on Thursday would remain in their posts temporarily, although virtually all had resigned after the crackdown on protesters on Saturday.
After Merino’s resignation, Peru will be without a president for a few hours this Sunday, until Congress appoints a new one from among its members, possibly one of the 19 parliamentarians who did not vote in favor of removing Vizcarra.
The Congress had exhorted minutes before the president to resign, under the threat that he would throw him out if he did not resign. The parliamentary leaders, who accompanied Merino in the political trial against Vizcarra, abandoned the new ruler after the violent repression of the protests, which generated a wave of condemnations in the country and abroad.
“We did it”
As soon as Merino made the announcement, the streets of Lima filled with protesters banging pans and shouting slogans in a boisterous celebration.
“We did it. Do you realize what we are capable of doing? ”Wrote the Peruvian soccer team Renato Tapia on social media.
Former president Vizcarra celebrated the resignation of the president and urged the Constitutional Court to rule as soon as possible on his removal from office on November 9. “A dictator has emerged from the palace. Merino has stepped aside. It was cracking our democracy, “he told reporters.
The plenary session of Parliament was convened for 4:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. GMT) to choose the new leader, who could come out of the centrist Purple Party, the only one who opposed the removal of Vizcarra en bloc.
The demonstrations on Saturday have left two dead and 94 injured, according to officials from the Ministry of Health. But the National Human Rights Coordinator affirmed that 112 were injured and warned that there are also 41 “disappeared” protesters after the marches in Lima and other cities in the country.
The repression of those protests cost him what little political support he had for Merino. The president of Congress, Luis Valdez, demanded his “immediate resignation”, adding to the demand that thousands of protesters had made since Tuesday.
“Congress must apologize to the country for such an irresponsible decision (to remove Vizcarra),” said leftist legislator Mirtha Vásquez, from the Broad Front, one of the 19 members of Parliament who voted against Vizcarra’s removal.
Merino, a provincial politician almost unknown to Peruvians before taking office, was even criticized by figures from his own party, the center-right Popular Action, such as Lima Mayor Jorge Muñoz.
Those killed in Saturday’s demonstrations were identified as Jack Bryan Pintado Sánchez, 22, and Inti Sotelo Camargo, 24, according to police. Photos of both are circulated on social media under the title “Heroes of the Bicentennial” (which Peru celebrates on July 28, 2021).
“An independent person”
Policing has been severely questioned by the UN and human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, since the protests began on Tuesday, the day Merino took office.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an entity of the Organization of American States (OAS), lamented the death of the two protesters “during actions of state repression of mass protests” and demanded that they “immediately investigate the facts and establish responsibilities ”.
“I have no responsibility for the violence,” declared the government’s number two, Prime Minister Ántero Flores-Aráoz this Sunday.
From Spain, the Peruvian writer and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa had called for an end to the “repression against all of Peru” and requested that Merino be replaced by “a person who is truly independent” and who gives guarantees of impartiality in the presidential elections. and legislative of April 2021.
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