Peru: Who is Martín Vizcarra, the ousted president? – Latin America – International

Suspicions that he received bribes to award public works in the Moquegua region, of which he was governor six years ago, ended with Martín Vizcarra’s Presidency of Peru, the same ruler who closed Congress and who undertook a tough frontal fight against corruption in the country.

(Read: The Congress of Peru approves the removal of President Vizcarra)

Vizcarra, on the night of this Monday, said that he is leaving the Government Palace despite
“disagree” and have the possibility of taking “legal action”.

“Today I am leaving the Government Palace, today I am going home, despite the fact that there are innumerable recommendations for us to act through legal actions to prevent this decision,” said Vizcarra, who added that he is leaving with his head held high. .

The 57-year-old civil engineer had one of the most eventful and brief presidencies in recent decades, as he took office in 2018, after the resignation of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, closed Congress in 2019 protected by the Constitution and in the context of its frontal fight against corruption and he had to prepare a transition for the next government that would happen in 2021 in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic.

Vizcarra came to the Executive as vice president of Kuczynski in 2016 and in the also short government of his predecessor, was minister and then ambassador to Canada, before assuming office when the first he was forced to resign after being accused of having received money from the Brazilian company Odebrecht.

Without political backing, Vizcarra seemed destined to be a weak governor in the hands of an overwhelmingly oppositional Congress at the hands of Fujimori, and yet, thanks to his confrontation with congressmen for his alleged collusion with corruption, He went on to garner huge popular support and beat his rivals until the climax of the dissolution of parliament in September 2019.

(Also read: ‘When Vizcarra leaves power, he goes to jail’)

In January of this year, the new congressional elections left a highly divided parliament, where it did not have any official sector and soon became its greatest enemy again.

Meanwhile, a pandemic of global magnitude surprised him in the presidency and he occupied all his activities in the first half of the year, when the country reached the highest death rate in the world from covid-19, and that has added more than 34,000 deaths to date.

Vizcarra had no respite with the new Congress and after several conflicts over political issues and laws passed by the chamber, in September came a first order for dismissal for irregular hiring of singer Richard “Swing” Cisneros, whom he met in the 2016 election campaign.

(It may interest you: Why does the president of Peru want to shorten his term?)

The closeness of Vizcarra with Swing was demonstrated in the audios that his former secretary of the Palace Karem Roca kept from the coordination with the president and his closest circle, andn an act that the president described as “treason” and that is still under investigation.

Beyond the fact of whether or not Vizcarra helped to illegally hire Swing in the State, It was clear that the president had lied to public opinion by denying a close relationship that later became more and more evident.

However, what really saved Vizcarra from dismissal was knowing that the president of Congress, the opposition Manuel Merino, he had had encounters with the heads of the armed forces with the alleged intention of plotting against him. Both then and now, Merino is constitutionally charged with succeeding
Vizcarra at the head of the country.

Congressmen investigated

As a defense in recent weeks, the president wielded that a radical bench in Parliament, led from prison by the ex-military coup leader and sentenced for murder Antauro Humala, is the one seeking his downfall, managing his own political agenda and seeking, In alliance with other political groups, postpone general elections to stay in office for longer.

(Also read: President of Peru vetoes law that would release Alberto Fujimori)

Vizcarra insisted on these theses on Monday, defending himself from the second dismissal request that is based on statements by aspiring effective collaborators of the Prosecutor’s Office not yet corroborated.

In his defense, the now ex-president pointed out that there are 68 congressmen (out of a total of 130 legislators) currently being investigated by the Public Ministry and that they have a “vested interest” in being removed from office, presumably to maintain privileges and not be prosecuted.

It did not help that he categorically and repeatedly denied any act of corruption and asked that he be investigated according to law when in July 2021 he had to leave the presidency.

Ongoing investigations

Vizcarra, who was linked to the metalworking business in his native Moquegua before his political life, was investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office for the alleged bribes during his regional administration, precisely for the same public work for which they now accuse him of having received bribes, an investigation that was archived.

With the revelations that ended in his dismissal, the prosecution reopened the case, which joins another that was going to extend until the end of his term in office, for the allegations of the “Swing” case in view of the fact that there is merit to investigate it for an alleged influence peddling.

In parallel, Prosecutor Germán Juárez, from the team investigating the Lava Jato case in Peru, has already asked Vizcarra on two occasionsSince the winning companies in the Moquegua tenders are also investigated as they are involved in the “construction club”, a group of companies that distributed public works in exchange for millionaire bribes.

(You may be interested in: The five former Peruvian presidents who have trouble with the justice system)

Paradoxically, Vizcarra achieved notoriety at the national level after a striking performance in the Moquegua region, where he achieved the highest indicators in social development, andespecially in school education, and the best human development index.

For these results, Vizcarra had received in 2015 the Magisterial Palms in the Amauta Degree (teacher), the highest official decoration for a Peruvian teacher. And as president, he gained massive popularity for his direct confrontation with elements in Congress that opposed his anti-corruption plans.

Now, Vizcarra will lose presidential immunity and can be investigated without impediments, to be thus condemned or not by legal means, after having already been condemned by political means.

After the announcement, hundreds of Peruvians who are against Vizcarra’s vacancy decision protested through a cacerolazo called in Lima, the country’s capital.

EFE

It may interest you:

– What happens after the vacancy of President Martín Vizcarra?

– President of Peru is summoned to testify by prosecutor in the Lava Jato case