Peru's President survives impeachment vote in Congress' corruption probe

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the Peruvian President on September 18 survived the impeachment vote after lawmakers accused Martín Vizcarra of obstructing peddling probe basis audio evidence leaked by Edgar Alarcon—a legislator charged with embezzlement. Peru's opposition-controlled Congress attempted to oust him after he was caught dodging investigations into nearly $US50,000 ($68,000) government contracts given to singer Richard Cisneros that led parliament to question his anti-corruption agenda. However, defying the two-third majority, the leader had 78 votes cast against him, while 15 abstained, failing the opposition lawmakers' deliberations. 

“It’s not the moment to proceed with an impeachment which would add even more problems to the tragedy we are living,” lawmaker Francisco Sagasti was quoted saying in an AP report, mentioning Peru’s severely reeling conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country has been reported to have the world’s highest per-population virus mortality rate, and somewhat the world’s worse economic contraction. Peru’s political scientists have also condemned the opposition’s “mindless” attempts of removal of the president in such crucial times of the health and economic crisis. While the local media sources reported massive flak drawn to the congress’ move of impeachment, without prior public debate and investigation into the alleged involvement of President Vizcarra in a corruption scandal, the opposition on September 18 continued to flare the internal political conflicts, regardless.

Read: Peru Ministers: Not Backing Vizcarra Impeachment

Read: Peru's Indigenous Turn To Ancestral Remedies To Fight Virus

“In the overall scheme of things, Vizcarra has won this round, but winning is a very relative term,” said Jo-Marie Burt, a senior fellow with the Washington Office on Latin America in an AP report.

Congress short of 87 votes

Furthermore, the political turmoil distracted the country’s attention from the South American nation’s dire coronavirus health crisis and deviated the leaders from response efforts to dunk the country’s highest per capita COVID-19 mortality rate. Post a debate that lasted for more than 10 hours as per local media sources, opposition-dominated Congress was left short of 87 votes of the total 130  to impeach its President. And that, on grounds of the 57-year-old leader’s ‘moral incapacity’. “I do not hide,” President Vizcarra was reported defending himself in the parliament’s impeachment session, adding, he wasn’t involved in corruption and so he comes with a head high and his conscience clear. Peru’s president gave a nearly 20-minute speech to Congress defending himself against charges about illegal and unlawful contracts allegedly given by the Ministry of Culture to entertainer Cisneros. 

[Reporters interview a lawmaker outside Congress in Lima, Peru. Credit: AP]

[Police stand guard outside Congress in Lima, Peru. Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra's job is on the line Friday as opposition lawmakers push through an impeachment hearing. Credit: AP]

Read: Taiwan's President Pledges Stronger Ties With US Amid Chinese Drills

Read: Taiwan, US Pay Tribute To Island's Leader, 'Mr. Democracy'

(With Agency Inputs)

(Image Credit: AP)