The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, is on the verge of impeachment this Thursday. The country’s Congress has gathered, with at least 120 votes, a comfortable majority to approve a motion of censure against the president when there are six months left before the presidential elections are held. The measure, classified according to the Peruvian Constitution as a vacancy, was presented this morning by the Popular Renovation bench – the group led by the mayor of Lima, the ultra-conservative Rafael López Aliaga, alias Porky— due to the deep crisis of violence that suffocates Peruvians. Hours earlier, on Wednesday night, the popular cumbia band Agua Marina suffered an attack during their performance at a military facility. Four members of the group were shot in the chest and leg.
Boluarte, who assumed command after Pedro Castillo’s failed self-coup attempt in December 2022, until today maintained tight control of Congress, the most discredited institution in the country, according to surveys. On the road to its fall, the vote of Fuerza Popular, the right-wing party led by Keiko Fujimori, is key.
It wasn’t the deaths of fifty protesters, nor his abandonment of office to have a rhinoplasty and iron his crow’s feet in secret. Neither did the favors he brought to the table in exchange for high-end jewelry and watches, nor the presumption of having covered up fugitives from justice. Boluarte faces his most complicated hours due to his inability to combat the wave of crime that hits Peru.
Congress, which kept her afloat in a pact to survive until 2026, let go of her hand. His mandate, which began on the wrong foot when he did not fulfill his promise to call elections, unleashed a series of mobilizations from the southern mountains to the capital. The excessive repression of the law enforcement forces dispersed them for a time, but they were revived in mid-2024 by the extortion and hitman mafias that have urban transportation and merchants in various sectors in check.
A few weeks ago, the youth — self-proclaimed Generation Z — agitated the streets again. But it was the recent attack against the cumbia orchestra Armonía 10 that has led to this situation. The Popular Renewal bench, which had saved Boluarte’s neck on more than one occasion, promoted a vacancy motion against him. As the hours passed, the groups with the most members in the Chamber folded: Fuerza Popular, Alianza para el Progreso and the Together for Peru coalition, Voices of the People and the Magisterial Bloc. In total there have been four vacancy motions. In the absence of a vote or a decision on a possible resignation, in almost three years of mandate, for the first time Boluarte is staggering and has nowhere to hold on to stay upright.
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