Quick version of events: Last Tuesday, Peru’s Congress ousted the popular elected President, Martín Vizcarra, using a law from the 1800s to remove him for “permanent moral incapacity”; he was accused of “taking more than $630,000 in bribes in exchange for two construction contracts while governor of a small province years ago.”
Congress quickly installed Manuel Merino as Interim President until elections could be held in April.
This did not go over well with Peruvians.
Six days of protests followed, culminating in the deaths of two protestors last night. Half Merino’s cabinet immediately resigned and it wasn’t long before Merino also stepped down, leaving the country without a President and with the aforementioned Congress seeking a solution.
Vizcarra has called for Peru’s highest court to step in:
Anyone got any more insight or information on this? Any ideas on how will all shake out in the end?
I have no idea what the supposed endgame of the Congress was in ousting Vizcarra, even.
I heard a BBC story on this a few days ago, and it appears that the ousted president was combatting rampant corruption in the legislature, so the Congress turned around and ousted the President using trumped-up and unsubstantiated charges from years ago when he was Governor of Moquegua.
From the AP story:
Reportedly one of the most common reasons that people run for Congress in Peru is to avoid prosecution for crimes.
Nitpick: Vizcarra wasn’t elected, he inherited the post as VP. You can probably guess why the previous president is no longer in office, though he took the Nixon strategy.
Vizcarra had stated he was not running in the next election but would be interim. So it seems kind of petty from the legislature. A factor seems to be that he was not part of the political party structure.
