Peru’s parliament on Monday adjourned until Tuesday to debate a bill calling for early elections as part of the government’s push to end the protests and riots that have rocked the country as thousands remain on the streets. President Dina Boluarte resigns.

“By decision of the President of Parliament (…) the plenary session will continue on Tuesday, January 31 at 11:00 am” (local time; 6:00 pm Greek time), the Congress said in a statement after the trials. it lasted seven and a half hours in search of consent.

The vote to speed up elections to be held in October 2023, which many in Peru are waiting for, is intended to provide an institutional solution to the grave political and social crisis the country is going through following suspension, arrest and pre-trial detention. On December 7, leftist ex-president Pedro Castillo, who was accused of attempting a “coup d’état” by announcing that he would dissolve the Congress in preparation to remove him from power.

His then vice-president, Dina Boluarte, who came to power, faced massive protests from her first days in office, especially in the Andean regions of the south of the country, home to a poor and historically neglected population that supported Mr. victory, they saw something like revenge for the contempt and racism of the elite of the capital, especially towards the indigenous population.

In her Sunday speech, Ms Boluarte ratcheted up the pressure on Parliament, demanding that it speed up the elections and warning that otherwise she would introduce a new constitutional review bill for early elections, which would also provide that the next elected Congress would have to to oversee the “total revision” of the Peruvian Constitution, ratified in 1993.

“Vote for Peru, for the country, by accelerating the elections in 2023, and with the greatest responsibility let’s tell all of Peru that we will all leave,” she said, addressing members of Congress.

The political and social crisis of the past seven weeks, which has left at least 48 people dead, shows no signs of easing. Ms Bulvarte’s government says ten more people have died in accidents or blockade-related incidents across the country.

Source: RES-IPE