So while the economy minister has announced
a downward revision of this year’s GDP growth (from the initially projected 2.5% to only 1.1%), the Peruvian Congress has found nothing more urgent than to approve a motion paving the way for the removal of the entire 7-member National Board of Justice (JNJ), the independent body in charge of appointing and sanctioning judges and prosecutors. The move has even been criticized by the local office of the United Nations as posing a potential threat against the independence of the judiciary system and the principles of separation and equilibrium of powers.
The motion to start a parliamentary review of the JNJ and potentially fire its members has been introduced by a Fujimorista congresswoman and approved by 78 out of 130 congressmen, the bulk of them being constituted by the new so-called
fujicerronista which has taken control of the Congress’ bureau (
mesa directiva) on last 26 July, on the occasion of its yearly renewal.
The slate (‘list 1’) constituted then by an unlikely alliance between Fujimori’s FP and other right-wing minor parties on one hand and Vladimir Cerrón’s Marxist PL on the other received indeed the support of 77 congressmen while only 39 votes went for the sole opposing slate (‘list 2’) which was supported by the centrist AP, the center-left JPP as well as the leftist Bloque Magisterial and Perú Bicentenario, two splits of PL.
The new bureau of the Congress, constituted by an APP president, a FP first vice-president, a PL second vice-president and an AP third vice-president, is an incredible assortment of clowns and criminals, two facing investigation in one or (way way) more corruption cases (hence why they are interested into dismantling the independent judiciary).
* The new president of the Congress and next-in-line for presidential succession in case of an impeachment of Boluarte is
Alejandro Soto (Alianza para el Progreso), a congressman from Cusco who before his election to Congress in 2021 was a TV journalist.
At the time of his election as president of the Congress, Soto had some 55 investigations (the recordman of the current Congress) opened against him for a very large variety of crimes ranging from fraud and forgery of documents to illicit appropriation, extortion and usurpation of functions.
Several new ones have been added since as he has been also accused of having plagiarized his doctoral thesis and having hired in his parliamentary office a 25-year-old woman whose only qualification seems to be the fact she is his own sister-in-law.
A fantastic argument advanced by Luis Aragón (AP), the opponent of Soto in the election of president of Congress, to present his candidacy as stronger than the one of Soto, has been: ‘There is one judicial investigation opened against me, there are fifty-five opened against my colleague Soto. Obviously the difference is abysmal’ (Aragón is indeed investigated in the case of vote-buying on behalf of the Castillo administration and has faced suspicions of corruption due to his participation to a trip to Spain entirely paid by the Huawai company).
Soto has also sued fourteen journalists because he has been unhappy with their coverage of his judicial cases. Back in 2021, Soto became infamous when, while at the same time hosting a Cusco TV station political broadcast and running for Congress, he decided to interview himself:
https://twitter.com/KikesitoVH/status/1683655845249269762Possibly the next president of Peru...
* The first vice-presidency has gone to
Hernando Guerra-García (Fuerza Popular), a businessman who has been part of four or five different political parties before joining FP and working on Keiko Fujimori’s 2021 presidential campaign.
Elected a congressman for Lima the same year, he hold until his election as first vice-president the job of parliamentary spokesman of FP, in which office he constantly railed against the purported stealing of the 2021 presidential election by Castillo and PL and announced Keiko should be the FP candidate in the next presidential election. Guerra-García is also one of the signatories of the far-right Madrid Charter denouncing the evilness of ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ in the Ibero-Sphere, a signature that apparently doesn’t preclude doing parliamentary deals with PL, currently the biggest fan-club of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez in Peru.
Guerra-García has been forced to publicly apologize earlier this year for an incident that happened in June 2022, an incident very illustrative of how serious he is taking his job of congressman: while participating to an online session of a parliamentary commission, he accidentally activated the camera of his laptop, revealing he was sunbathing on a beach and wearing sunglasses and a sun hat.
* The second vice-presidency of the Congress has gone to
Waldemar Cerrón (Perú Libre), a congressman from Junín but above all the brother of Vladimir Cerrón, the dear leader of PL.
The Cerrón bros attempted to justify their betrayal of the ‘left-wing’ slate and their inclusion into the Fujimorista-supported ‘list 1’ by claiming such decision is enabling the historical entry of a representative of the ‘popular left’ in the bureau of the Congress and would pave the way for the realization of PL’s pipe-dream: the summoning of a Constituent Assembly.
However Keiko vetoed such summoning shortly after the renewal of the bureau and, when the distribution of the offices in the parliamentary commissions subsequently took place, FP managed to get the president of the constitution commission while PL failed to receive any of the mattering offices in said commission.
Posted then by Vladimir, between a ranting against the 'caviar' left and a praise of the Cuban Revolution:
https://twitter.com/VLADIMIR_CERRON/status/1683553803453202440We must leave the culture of a left born only to oppose, the left needs to prepare to govern. Participation in the mesa directiva is comparable to participation in a commission, a parliament or a political party system, where are all the representations.
Yeah, a cruel lesson from the Castillo administration, the ‘left’ should ‘prepare to govern’ before winning a presidential election. I’m not sure voters will give another try to PL, however.
The ideological justifications provided by Cerrón to justify the parliamentary deal with Fujimoristas have nonetheless failed to convince his party’s own caucus as four congressmen decided to walk out in protest leaving the PL with only 12 congressmen, down from 37 at the start of the legislature.
Waldemar Cerrón is currently investigated for presumed money laundering in relation to the alleged illegal financing of the PL’s past electoral campaigns.
* Finally, the third vice-presidency is now hold by
Rosselli Amuruz, the daughter of a Fujimorista congressman in the 1990s, who has been herself elected a congresswoman from Lima in 2021 for Avanza País.
Amuruz has been involved in various controversies ranging from accusations of having largely plagiarized a draft bill redacted by a former congressman during the previous legislature for her own draft bill to allegation her brother's company has be awarded seven public contracts since 2021, something which is violating the legal provision prohibiting relatives of congressmen to obtain contracts with the Peruvian state.
But above all, Amuruz has been heavily criticized for her utter disdain towards the health regulations implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic. In August 2021, a video was leaked in the medias showing the congresswoman celebrating her birthday during a party given in a Lima hotel where social distancing measures weren’t respected. Amuruz tried to justify her behavior by pretending the party was organized by her friends and that it was a way ‘to reactivate economy’. The salsa band which played at the birthday party was subsquently invited by Amuruz to the Legislative Palace to receive a decoration for ‘Musician’s Day’.
In early January 2022, just after Amuruz had declared being positive to coronavirus, the press revealed she had went to Punta Cana in Dominican Republican for New Year’s Day and participated again to a party where basic social distancing measures were ignored. Meanwhile, remember, Peruvian schools remained closed during two years…
More worryingly, Amuruz sponsored in last January a drafted bill to shorten the terms in office of the independent electoral authorities, a bill labeled as unconstitutional by legal experts and suspected of being an attempt to take control of the organization of the next elections.
Finally,
an article from last August summarizing the long series of parliamentary defections that has took place since the beginning of the legislature.
Precarious parliament. Perú Libre started with 37 and now there are only 12 cerronistas remaining. Acción Popular went from 16 to 7. The non-affiliated at this moment are constituting the second largest force with 17.
The Congress has been in office since only two years and there have been already 51 congressmen who have resigned from the bench they began their parliamentary work. An extremely high number, a clear expression of the acute political crisis in the country.
The legislature started with nine benches (an already high number) and, at this day, there are officially twelve benches. The coming New Constitution bench, as announced, will formalize today its request for recognition, which would rise the number of parliamentary benches to thirteen.
Out of the nine benches that inaugurated the Congress in July 2021, the hardest hit by resignations has been Perú Libre. They were 37 and now there are only 12 left. The management of the bench by the leadership of cerronismo has been the main motive of constant defections (the last one was the consolidation of the fujicerronista alliance).
Acción Popular has became the second bench with the most losses. Out of 16 elected, only 7 are remaining. Renovación Popular lost five members. This was the bench with the first resignations, happening as soon as they were sworn.
APP lost four. Fuerza Popular, Avanza País, Somos Perú and Podemos Perú also registered resignations. Only Juntos por el Perú didn’t have defectors, although this doesn’t reflect a solidity in the relation between the bench and the party.
The request for recognition of the ‘Socialist New Constitution’ bench has ultimately been rejected but its five members (all former PL congressmen) are still trying to obtain an official status for their caucus. Also Perú Bicentenario had been on the verge of losing official status after the resignation of one of its congressmen, reducing the number of its members below the required minimum number (five congressmen). Fortunately for Perú Bicentenario, the congressman reversed his ‘irrevocable’ resignation, preventing the bench to join Perú Democrático and Integridad y Desarrollo on the list of the disappeared bench of the current legislature.
