MADRID, 30 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
Peru Libre, the party of the president, Pedro Castillo, has presented a constitutional reform to advance the presidential and parliamentary elections to the end of March 2023, an initiative that has caused differences between its different members.
This project, which represents the umpteenth challenge that the Head of State has to face in just nine months in office, has been presented by the deputy Pasión Dávila and has had the support of seven other bench colleagues of the 32 that he has Free Peru in Congress.
Among them is his spokesman, Waldemar Cerrón, brother of Vladimir Cerrón, president of the party and one of the voices most critical of Castillo. However, later, at least four members of the ruling caucus who had decided to support the initiative have requested the withdrawal of their signature, including Cerrón himself.
The spokesman for Peru Libre had also confirmed, according to the Peruvian RPP, that the initiative had been withdrawn. Despite this, Pasión Dávila has confirmed to the newspaper ‘El Comercio’ that she will insist on her proposal, which only maintains the signatures of congressmen Segundo Montalvo, Flavio Cruz and María Agüero, in addition to Dávila’s.
“Waldemar signed it in his capacity as spokesman and other colleagues. With that I presented the document to the Mayor’s Office so that it can be processed. I’m surprised, I don’t know what the criteria would have been,” Dávila said regarding Cerrón de not support the project.
Peru Libre has not been the only one that has presented a project to advance elections. At the same time, the conservative Podemos Peru –four deputies– has done the same, in a text in which it sets July 28, 2023 as the end date of Castillo’s mandate and two days before that of the parliamentarians.
In turn, it indicates that Castillo will have a period of 48 hours to call elections from the moment the proposal was approved, and should be set for the end of March 2023.
Both reform projects are justified by the political crisis –represented in the continuous cabinet changes–, the social unrest, as well as Castillo’s alleged inability to negotiate with the opposition and the rest of the national actors, according to the text presented by Deputy Davila.
According to the congresswoman from Peru Libre, one of the motivations for the proposal she has presented is the continuous attack by the opposition on President Castillo and the threats of a motion of censure. “If that is the intention, then we all leave,” Dávila warned in statements to the newspaper ‘La República’.
In that sense, Dávila wanted to clarify that this initiative “is not” because of Castillo, but because of the attacks by opposition congressmen. According to the polls, he points out, “Congress is deplored by the great majority of society. Now, we are going to debate and see what position the other benches take.”
“The congressmen do not let the president govern. Every day they file complaints, constitutional accusations, mandate cuts, they want to preside and they do not want to recognize that Congress is also wrong. So, we are all leaving,” he settled.
On the other hand, the president of the Peruvian Congress, María del Carmen Alva, has referred to these initiatives and has assured, as the Peruvian media has collected, that all the projects are “debatable”.
