President Pedro Castillo was accused of leading an alleged criminal organization by the Peruvian Public Ministry. In dialogue with Sputnik, former congressman Alberto Quintanilla affirms that the conservative sectors are determined to prevent “a minimally acceptable management” of the president.
A new political crisis has been unleashed in Peru after the Attorney General of the Nation, Patricia Benavides, filed a constitutional complaint against the incumbent president, Pedro Castillo, accused of leading an alleged criminal organization.
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The former congressman of the New Peru Party Alberto Quintanilla told Sputnik that in Peru there is “a fairly pronounced polarization, where the conservative or right-wing forces have lost the elections to a character like Pedro Castillo, who has been elected by historically marginalized sectors, the lower sectors.”
According to Quintanilla, the Peruvian right-wing parties want “to prevent Pedro Castillo from having a minimally acceptable administration, because that could create the conditions for historically marginalized populations to elect others similar to Pedro Castillo in the future and a deeper change to take place.”
Prosecutor Benavides has filed a complaint against the Peruvian president for the alleged commission of common crimes, use and abuse of power for private benefit and acts of corruption.
The former congressman maintains that Castillo is the victim of a type of judicial persecution unprecedented in the recent history of Peru, at least since the promulgation of the Constitution in force since 1993.
“Our constitutional order, in its article 117, allows that the president of the Republic in office can only be accused of four crimes,” Quintanilla stressed. The crimes are:
- Treason against the country.
- Dissolve Congress.
- Prevent elections.
- Prevent the meeting or operation of the Congress or the National Elections Jury and other bodies of the electoral system.
According to the former Peruvian congressman and politician, “what is intended is to create the conditions so that Congress, also making a forced interpretation, can declare permanent moral incapacity and vacate the presidency. That is what the Prosecutor of the Nation, as part of an orchestration with the conservative political force.”
JUDICIAL COUP
Legally, Congress will refer the complaint to the Commission on Constitutional Accusations so that it can rule. This commission will open the process and discuss whether or not it proceeds and can finally authorize the Public Ministry to denounce and accuse the president, which would open an unprecedented path.
It is the first time that this mechanism of constitutional accusation has been used “because it was understood that the president, since he could not be accused of four crimes —which is not what he is accused of now—, could not even be investigated. But the The Public Ministry, which is an autonomous constitutional body, interpreted that it could investigate it,” he explains.
Quintanilla assures that the initiative of the Prosecutor’s Office has the “backing of a relative majority of the conservative forces in Congress and they now have control of the Public Ministry and they think they are going to achieve the support of a relative majority in the Constitutional Court and a position benevolent of the Supreme Court.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE EXECUTIVE POWER AND ITS DEFENSE
Quintanilla maintains that “in a context in which the conservative forces and those that support Pedro Castillo, who are a relative minority in Congress, none have sufficient strength to impose a dissolution of Congress by the Executive Branch, nor does the Congress has the strength to vacate [impeach] the president.”
If one of the two things happened, the presidential vacancy or the dissolution of Congress, “citizens would ask for everyone to leave. That is what they fear, no one wants to vacate the president and then be dissolved and call general elections,” he considered.
“This is going to last a couple more years,” Quintanilla predicts. “They are going to seek to accumulate forces and in the fifth year a special figure is produced, the Constitution says that Congress cannot be dissolved and in those circumstances the president would have fewer possibilities and it could be that Congress dares to vacate the president”, esteem the former congressman.
CITIZEN PULSE
The social sectors that suffer the most from marginalization feel that they have been able to come to power through the vote, says Quintanilla.
“What I appreciate in the peasants is that they began to elect. First aldermen, then regional councillors, then district mayors, provincial mayors, governors and then presidents,” he insisted. However, now they observe “that they do not let him govern.”
Pedro Castillo “certainly does everything possible to collaborate with this image that he is not a good ruler,” Quintanilla lamented.
He is not a politician who is seeking organic support from the left, which is extremely weakened and favors him because the right is also weakened,” he emphasized.
“Peru is suffering a political and institutional crisis as a result of the current constitutional design, which prioritizes the individual and not the collective. It is a generalized crisis. That is why the political agents that are confronting each other are weak and none have the strength to impose themselves on the other and have the support of the population,” he concluded.
With information from Sputnik