Peru’s centrist president threatened to shut the opposition-run Congress if it carries out a plan to make appointments to the country’s top court on Monday, as rightwing lawmakers vowed to physically resist what they deemed an imminent coup d’etat.FILE PHOTO: Peru’s President Martin Vizcarra, speaks during the 4th Pacific Alliance Summit in Lima, Peru July 6, 2019. REUTERS/Guadalupe Pardo/File Photo
A power struggle between the executive and legislature has brought Peru’s young democracy to the brink of a constitutional crisis, threatening to grind lawmaking to a halt and potentially trigger unrest in one of Latin America’s most stable economies.
In an interview on TV show Cuarto Poder late on Sunday, President Martin Vizcarra vowed to defend Peru from what he described as corrupt mafias that had captured Congress and had now set their sights on the Constitutional Tribunal (TC), Peru’s top court and a likely referee in any legal dispute between the government and Congress.
Vizcarra made clear he was prepared to shut Congress — a nuclear option in Peru’s constitution — if needed to halt a vote on up to six justices of the seven-member TC.
The nominees have come under fire for links to judges ensnared in one of several back-to-back corruption scandals that have discredited public institutions in recent years.
If lawmakers appoint the justices, Vizcarra said he would count it as a vote of no-confidence over the matter and would close Congress “in strict application of the constitution.”
“This isn’t an attack on my government; it’s an attack on the country,” Vizcarra told local investigative news show Cuarto Poder. “We’re willing and have the strength to take this to the ultimate consequences for Peru.”
Under Peru’s constitution, presidents can dissolve Congress to call new elections if the assembly delivers two votes of no-confidence in a government. The current Congress has already rejected a confidence vote once.
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But opposition lawmakers say Vizcarra has overstepped by trying to override Congress’ authority to name TC justices. Some hardline lawmakers have promised to defy attempts to dismiss them by chaining themselves to Congress and leaving only if forced out “in a blaze of bullets.”
“President @MartinVizcarraC is announcing a coup d’etat,” said congressman Salvador Heresi. “He would go down in history as a dictator.”
Lawmakers are now some of the most despised officials in a country where the four most recent presidents have been ensnared in a graft scandal involving Brazilian builder Odebrecht, including one who killed himself to avoid arrest this year.
Some political analysts say anger at Peru’s traditional political parties makes the country ripe for an anti-establishment outsider to sweep to power in the next elections.
‘LET THEM IMPEACH ME’
Vizarra told Cuarto Poder he has the political, social and “technical” support to enforce the closure of Congress.
A government source who asked not to be named said that if lawmakers refuse to leave, authorities could cut off access to the chamber to deprive them of food and water. Vizcarra’s supporters vowed to pressure lawmakers with a protest scheduled outside Congress early on Monday.
Peru’s police department instructed its units to be on “maximum alert” for potential disturbances at Congress, according to an internal document seen by Reuters.
A former vice president and governor of a small mining province, Vizcarra has emerged as the unlikely champion of an anti-corruption movement since taking office last year to replace former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who is now under house arrest in connection with an Odebrecht probe.
Most Peruvians have backed Vizcarra’s confrontational stance with the rightwing party that has dominated Congress for the past three years, Popular Force, led by Keiko Fujimori, the jailed daughter of also-imprisoned former authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori.
Vizcarra refused to leave office early unless lawmakers go with him. “Let them impeach me if they have the votes,” he said.
Reporting By Mitra Taj and Marco Aquino, Editing by William Maclean
LIMA (Reuters) –
