[ad_1]
After five days of marches, in which two young people died, Manuel Merino, the president who replaced Martín Vizcarra, president dismissed on Monday for alleged corruption, resigns. There are three presidents in five years and Congress must appoint a new one. Where is Peru going?
Manuel Merino it did not hold the popular claim. From the day he assumed the presidency, after promoting the removal of Martín Vizcarra, the streets exploded. However, Saturday night was the most complicated, as, as a result of the police attacks against the protesters, two young people died.
See more: Who is Miguel Merino, who resigned from the presidency of Peru?
It was the drop that overflowed the glass. Then, since the morning of this Sunday, congressmen, politicians and the citizens themselves intensified their request: the resignation of Merino, who, overcome by the social situation, took a step to the side.
I want to let the whole country know that I am submitting my irrevocable resignation as President of the Republic, “the fleeting ruler declared on television.
See more: Why did Manuel Merino resign?
The newspaper Trade He asked the Congress of the Republic, “an accomplice of the disaster we are experiencing today, to take, now, the correct decisions, thinking of the good of the country and no longer of the interests that have nurtured all its actions. Thus, it is necessary to put in the highest position in the public sector a person who can heal the wounds that we have opened for five years, and that this representation decided to deepen these days.
See more: Corruption, the root of the evils in Peru
What’s next in Peru?
According to analysts consulted by the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, what should happen this Sunday is that Congress appoints a new president. With one problem: Merino resigned from the Presidency of the Republic, but continues to hold the position of President of Congress.
The former president of the Constitutional Court, Óscar Urviola Hani, explained to the Peruvian newspaper that what should happen now is “a motion of censure from the full Congress so that Merino also leaves the presidency of Congress; could continue to be a legislator ”.
After that step, Urviola adds, Congress will have to “rebuild its Board of Directors, appointing a new president who will assume the functions of the national government,” he explains in El Comercio. For that, 87 votes are required.
See more: Martín Vizcarra and other presidents who did not finish their mandate
Merino said that so that there is no “power vacuum,” the 18 ministers he was sworn in on Thursday will remain in their posts temporarily, although virtually all had resigned after the crackdown on protesters on Saturday.
Who can be the new president?
In a week, Peru will have three presidents, if today Congress appoints Merino’s successor, something that is expected, because at this moment the country is without a president, a situation that cannot be prolonged, analysts explain.
According to congressional voices, the new president will come out of one of the 19 parliamentarians who did not vote in favor of the removal of Vizcarra.
The plenary session of Parliament was called for four in the afternoon to choose the new leader, who could leave the Purple Party, the only one who opposed the removal of Vizcarra en bloc.
However, it is proposed in Congress that Martín Vizcarra return, in favor of the “stability of the country.” Could it be? The legal loopholes are so many that many consider that removal from office can be reversed. Congress, however, yesterday rejected the only proposal that was presented to form the new board of directors, headed by Rocío Silva Santiesteban, of the Frente Amplio de Izquierdas. At 10 p.m. he proposed to present another list and they were expected to vote around midnight.
How long will the new president last?
Like Merino, the president named by the Peruvian Congress today would be transitional, while the March elections of next year arrive and the new government, out of the polls, takes office on July 28, 2021.
What happens in the streets of Peru?
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.
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.
And the police responsibility?
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.
See more: This is how Peru protested since Merino assumed the Presidency
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CICH), an entity of the Organization of American States, lamented the death of the two protesters “during actions of state repression of mass protests” and demanded “an immediate investigation of 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.
See more: “I don’t know what bothers them”, Ántero Flores-Aráoz on the protests
From Spain, the Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa had called for an end to the “repression against all of Peru” and requested thate Merino was replaced by “a person who is truly independent” and to provide guarantees of impartiality in the presidential and legislative elections of April 2021.
[ad_2]
