Vizcarra gives a farewell statement to the press before leaving the
presidential Palace in Lima, following his impeachment by an
overwhelming majority Congress vote on November 9, 2020, during a
second political trial against him in less than two months,Luka
GONZALES / AFP
Peru’s Congress voted Monday to impeach and oust
President Martin Vizcarra over allegations he took kickbacks from
developers while serving as a regional governor in
2014.
After an impeachment trial that lasted nearly eight hours, the
motion to remove the popular president was approved by 105 votes to
19, with four abstentions — far exceeding the 87 votes needed to
impeach.
“The resolution declaring the vacancy of the presidency of the
republic has been approved,” declared Congress leader Manuel
Merino, who under the constitution will take over the presidential
functions until the end of the current term in July 2021.
Vizcarra declared he was leaving office with his head “held
high,” and ruled out taking legal action to resist Congress’s
decision.
“I leave the government palace as I entered two years, eight
months ago: with my head held high,” he said, surrounded by his
ministers on the patio of the government house, adding he would
leave immediately for his private home.
“I’m leaving with a clear conscience and with my duty
fulfilled,” said Vizcarra, who enjoyed record levels of popularity
in his 32 months in office.
People held marches and banged pots and pans in a show of
support for him in Lima and other cities after his impeachment.
Vizcarra’s tumultuous presidency ended in a similar fashion to
that of the man he replaced, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Wall
Street banker who was forced to resign under threat of imminent
impeachment over corruption allegations in 2018.
“Peru comes out weaker institutionally. Merino will be a weak
president, that is the scenario in the context of general elections
against the backdrop of a pandemic,” political analyst Augusto
Alvarez Rodrich told AFP.
Peru will hold general and presidential elections in April
2021.
Merino, 59, will be sworn in at a special session of Congress on
Tuesday, becoming Peru’s third president since 2016, reflecting the
institutional fragility which has characterized the South American
country since independence from Spain in 1821.
Constitutionally, succession falls to Merino because Vizcarra’s
vice-president, Mercedes Araoz, resigned a year ago in the wake of
a separate political crisis.
– Vehement defense –
Speaking in his defense at the start of the impeachment trial
earlier Monday, the 57-year-old president rounded on his critics,
vehemently denying that he had ever accepted bribes.
“I emphatically and categorically reject these accusations,”
Vizcarra told lawmakers ahead of the vote over charges that he
accepted $620,000 in bribes in 2014.
Several businessmen claim Vizcarra received kickbacks in
exchange for public works contracts while he was governor of the
southern department of Moquegua.
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Vizcarra told lawmakers on Monday that the two contracts in
question were assigned by a UN agency and not by his administration
in Moquegua.
Prosecutors have been investigating the claims since 2018, but
they only gained political traction because of press reports, a
fact highlighted by Vizcarra in his defense.
Neither the public prosecutor’s office nor the court system had
levelled charges against him, he said.
He argued that no fewer than 68 of the members of the 130-seat
Congress seeking his impeachment themselves faced ongoing legal
processes without being removed from office.
Last month, the Attorney General’s office announced it would
investigate the allegations against Vizcarra when his term — and
the immunity afforded by his office — ended in April, but
Vizcarra’s opponents in Congress decided not to wait.
The impeachment removes a president who has won public support
at a time when Peru is seeking to emerge from an acute economic
crisis due in part to the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit the
country hard.
The South American country has the world’s highest per capita
death rate from the disease, which has seen nearly 35,000 deaths
and more than 920,000 cases.
– Public backing –
Vizcarra has won popular backing over pledges to root out
entrenched corruption in Peruvian politics since assuming power in
2018, though he has been at loggerheads with opponents in Congress,
where he lacked a party of his own, as well as a solid
majority.
Support for the president has been strong in opinion polls and
on social networks, and pot-banging protesters took to the streets
around the Congress building in the immediate aftermath of Monday
night’s vote.
Police clashed with pro-Vizcarra demonstrators a few blocks from
the building. Some waved signs accusing the Congress of a
“coup.”
Vizcarra received similar support when he survived a previous
impeachment vote in September.
Eight out of 10 Peruvians wanted him to continue until the end
of his mandate in July 2021, according to an Ipsos poll.
Business leaders called on Congress to show unity in order to
face the economic and health crisis, while influential Catholic
leader Cardinal Pedro Barreto said removing the president now would
be “catastrophic” for the country.
The previous vote centered on allegations that he directed aides
to lie to investigators in a separate, relatively minor, case.
His opponents in Congress failed to garner enough votes to
convict him of “moral incapacity.”
Peru has been politically unstable in recent years, with its
four previous presidents implicated in Latin America’s sprawling
Odebrecht corruption scandal.
Vizcarra succeeded Kuczynski in March 2018 after he resigned
ahead of an impeachment vote brought after he became embroiled in
the giant scandal.
-AFP
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