Peru’s Constitutional Crisis Cuts Deep Due to Endemic Corruption
by TRNN
October 11, 2019
The standoff between Peru's president and its legislature has found a temporary resolution, but the corruption crisis continues and the left might be able to take advantage of the situation.
For almost a week, it was unclear who is in charge of the government of Peru. That is, last week Peru’s president, Martin Vizcarra, dissolved the Congress. However, the Congress, which is controlled by far right politician Keiko Fujimori, ignored the president’s order and voted to remove the president from office instead. The vice president was then supposed to take over, but she resigned. Ultimately, Vizcarra seems to have remained in office and has now called for new congressional elections to be held on January 26 of this year.
Gerardo Renique is professor of history at the City College at University of New York and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal NACLA. Also, he is the co-author with Deborah Poole of the book Peru: Time of Fear.
The conflict between Peru’s Congress and its president came to a head in the midst of numerous corruption investigations, which led a former President, Alan Garcia, to commit suicide shortly before his arrest and forced the previous president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, to resign.
Opposition leader Keiko Fujimori herself, her father and former President Alberto Fujimori, and former President Alejandro Toledo have all served time in prison or are currently in prison. So what is going on in Peru? Is it a fight among the country’s elite or is it a struggle to rid the country of corruption, as President Vizcarra says?
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