Peruvian Elections and Politics: Boluarte era, political crisis continues

[Sir John Johns]

Fujimori's convoy being pelted with trash in Arequipa strikes me as a kind of canary in the coalmine. In my view, that's a sign of near total consolidation for Castillo in a provincial city that actually has plenty of right-wingers and non-indigenous people. Hard to see how Keiko can have a campaign there if her supporters would be attacked...

Simple, you go to a opposition activist (rather than simply voter) stronghold and feign decency, but the simple nature of you being there provokes a reaction. You end up as the seemingly decent one, despite the fact you are the provoker. Same with VOX putting up big posters in Mardid's most "Linke" style neighborhood or holding a "peaceful" march through separatist neighborhoods of Barcelona. You know what you are doing and want the reaction, not the action. It can work in both directions.

No offense but I don't think you understand anything about Peru or Latin America more generally. As Arequipa is Peru's 2nd largest city, it's filled with plenty of non-indigenous, middle class people who are wary of Castillo. It's the sort of city where even relatively affluent places feature indigenous people and where the slums are extensions of the highlands but it's still an urban environment where an anti-socialist/anti-indigenous candidate can expect a decent floor of support. This is evidenced by the fact that there's a section of the city where Hernando de Soto received over 30% of the vote!

Maybe the convoy intentionally went through some poor parts of the city, I cannot speak on that, but you'd absolutely expect Fujimori to actively campaign in Arequipa for reasons that aren't underhanded.

Actually, this will probably help Fujimori: she went to Arequipa to participate in a debate with Castillo and to take a public oath to preserve democracy, respect press freedom, defend the constitution and fight corruption in a ceremony attended by one of her former staunchest critic, Álvaro Vargas Llosa (a journalist and the son of Mario who himself spoke at the ceremony via video link) as well as Venezuelan opponent Leopoldo López. In the ceremony, Fujimori acknowledged ‘the mistakes made’ by her party and apologized to Peruvians who have ‘felt affected or disappointed’ by her actions; the fact she couldn’t help but called ‘unfair’ her imprisonment during which she pretended to had have her epiphany tells you just what you need to know about the sincerity of her apologies and her commitment to democratic institutions and justice.

But her motorcade being attacked by garbage and also allegedly stones by presumed sympathizers of Castillo (be it the result of a ‘provocation’ from Fujimori or not) in the days following the physical aggression of two TV journalists at a meeting of Castillo and the deadly attack from a Shining Path dissident group, gave her an excellent opportunity to posture as a victim, to denounce violence from Castillo followers and the threat to freedoms embodied by the ‘communist’ Perú Libre candidate. After the incident, she informed Castillo she hadn’t came for ‘a debate with stones’ but for ‘a debate about proposals with the respect every Peruvian is deserving’.

This is particularly laughable coming for Fujimori, the unapologetic defender of the murderous regime of her father, but this could help her attracted the votes of undecided voters or convince voters initially leaning towards Castillo to cast a null/blank vote.

Note that Castillo has made little efforts to dispel the impression he is no better than Fujimori on human rights and democracy with stuff like blaming feminicide (138 women murdered and 5,500 missing in 2020) on ‘the idleness generated by the state, the unemployment, the delinquency’ in a recent discourse or the renewed xenophobic promise to expel all foreign delinquents (read Venezuelan migrants; there are some 1.2 million ones in Peru) within the first 72 hours in office (providing the occasion to Fujimorists to hypocritically pose as the humanitarian ones). Not to mention nobody knows which role will play Vladimir Cerrón, the owner of Perú Libre, a particularly unsavory figure who called Maduro regime a ‘democratic government’ in 2019 after an official trip to Caracas, had to apologize the same year for a tweet in which he was promising to confront the ‘Jewish Peruvian powers’, is charged in various corruption cases and is accused of having when a governor of Junín incited his followers to harass journalists and bomb the seat of a local newspaper publishing articles on his alleged corruption.

As for Castillo’s economic proposals, it seems that nobody is able to tell what a Castillo administration will actually look like, his platform having constantly changed with constant reshuffling and infighting in his campaign team (one prominent economic adviser left after few days to protest interference from Cerrón on anticorruption matters), being full of vague, unclear or unrealistic proposals, still sufficient to draw unfavorable comparisons with the massive trainwreck that was the first Alan García administration. In the last days of the campaign, one adviser of the Castillo team (even if the Castillo campaign is now denying he was actually an adviser) was caught on television during a presentation of the candidate’s agenda calling one of the proposals ‘pure bribery’ and saying he was considering casting a null vote.

[Sir John Johns]

A bit off topic, but I just think about this: in case Keiko Fujimori lose the election (which is appearing very likely now), she would join the very exclusive club of ‘politicians having lost three presidential runoffs in a raw, each time against a different candidate’ whose, to my knowledge, the only other member is Álvaro Noboa from neighboring Ecuador. Noboa was firstly defeated in 1998 presidential runoff 48.8-51.2 by Jamil Mahuad (who was overthrown two years later in a civic-military coup), was again defeated in 2002 45.2-54.8 by Lucio Gutiérrez (who was impeached and forced to flee the country in 2005) and once more defeated in 2006 43.3-56.7 by Rafael Correa. He made two other presidential bids, one in 2009 when he placed third in the first round with 11.4%, and another one in 2013 when he placed fifth and received a pitiful 3.7%. He unsuccessfully tried to once more embarrass himself run for president this year but his candidacy was rejected by the electoral authorities.

The comparison with Noboa is especially unflattering for Fujimori because the Ecuadorian banana tycoon is a spectacularly catastrophic politician (as exemplified by the fact he became more and more unpopular at each presidential bid and that he received his best result when actively supported by Abdalá Bucaram, a literal populist buffoon who had lasted six months as president before being removed from office for his corruption, incompetence and whimsical behavior, then living in exile) who literally tried to buy the election with massive distribution of ‘freebies’ if not bank notes to voters but never had any coherent political strategy (the fact he just doesn’t care at all about what is happening in politics between each presidential election doesn’t help; I remember having read an article quite accurately describing his presidential bids as ‘a hobby’) nor half-credible platform in addition of being exceptionally uncharismatic and a nutcase who became increasingly hard to take seriously to the point he is now widely seen as a living political meme.

[Sir John Johns]

Change in the Fujimori vote between 2011 and 2021 runoffs:



Note: the Putumayo province (Loreto Department) was created in 2015, I use the combined result obtained by Fujimori in 2011 in the districts constituting now the Putumayo province but then part of Maynas province.

While Fujimori obtained in 2011 (48.1%) and in 2021 (49.6%) a very similar result in Peru itself (excluding the diaspora vote) while facing pretty similar opponents (a leftist outsider accused by the Peruvian right of being secretly a communist), a series of changes happened in a decade in the distribution of the Fujimorist vote. Broadly speaking, the far-right candidate further improved on her already strong results in the littoral (especially in several medium-sized cities: +14.4% in Tumbes province, +13.1% in Sullana province, +12.5%; in Santa province,+10.6% in Piura; but also, to a slightly lesser extend in the major cities of the coast: +10.4% in Callao province, +10.1% in Trujillo province, +7.8% in Lima province) while making inroads in the Amazon provinces notably in Maynas (+12.6%) where is located Iquitos (seventh-most populated city in Peru) and in Coronel Portillo (+8.4%) where is located Pucallpa (tenth-most populated city in Peru).

Conversely, she continued losing votes in the highlands, especially in the indigenous-populated areas, receiving her worst results in the provinces of Cusco and Puno departments (3.5% down from an already disastrous 6.4% in 2011 in Chumbivilcas province, Cusco; 4.4% down from 10.2% in 2011 in Canas province, Cusco; 4.6% down from 14.7% in 2011 in Azángaro province, Puno and so on). Well, she improved a bit (+0.4%) in the Jivaroan-populated province of Condorcanqui (Amazonas) but no reason to celebrate as she went from 8.9% to 9.3%. The Fujimori vote also receded in the eleven provinces of Ayacucho department but one (Páucar del Sara Sara where she improved her result from 26.3% to 27.0%) despite the fact that it is the familial homeland of Ollanta Humala, her 2011 rival. She however marginally improved her result in the urbanized parts of the coastal southeast: +1.5% in Tacna province and +3.0% in Arequipa province.

Eight of the ten provinces where the Fujimori share of vote declined the most are located in Cajamarca Department, the homeland of Pedro Castillo, with the most significant decline (-32.0%, from 46.1% in 2011 to 14.1%) happening in Chota, Castillo’s native province. Local opposition to mining in Cajamarca probably also probably explained the decrease in the vote for Fujimori as the far-right candidate suffered in a decade heavy losses in Pasco province (-21.0% from 45.4% to 24.4%), home to a controversial and very toxic lead mine, as well as in Espinar (Cusco Department, -16.1%), the theater of a conflict surrounding a mine operating since 1981, in Huancabamba (Piura Departement, -12.7%) where local communities are opposed to a mining project (in the neighboring province of Ayabaca, also concerned by the project, Fujimori’s result remained stable though, at 26.7%). Fujimori also lost a lot of ground (-18.2%) in Oyón province (Lima Department) whose economy is dominated by mining activities, which suggests that she has united miners and opponents to mining against her.

All in all, Fujimori improved her result in 43 provinces while losing ground in 153 others. She has gained eight provinces won by Humala in 2011 and lost twenty-three provinces she won in 2011 but had been gained by Castillo this year.

[Sir John Johns]

With just five months in office, Pedro Castillo is now investigated into two distinct corruption cases, hence on the verge of losing his main political asset: his supposed integrity and honesty.

The first one, already mentioned by Alfred, is about the awarding on last 19 October of a public works contract worth 255.9 million soles to a private consortium just few hours after two meetings were held in the presidential palace between on one hand Pedro Castillo and then-presidential secretary Bruno Pacheco and, on the other hand, Karelim López, a businesswoman and lobbyist enjoying close ties with the consortium. López met the following month Pacheco twice in the presidential palace and Castillo once in the Breña apartment the president irregularly used to meet businessmen. Suspicions about a rigged bid process arisen due to the fact the consortium linked to López won the tendering process for a price only 27 céntimos higher than its competitor.

The second one is concerning a possible intervention of the president to favor the awarding by Petroperú state oil company on 25 October of a contract worth $74 million to businessman Samir Abudayeh. The contract, which had been since nullified due to irregularities, was questionably green-lighted by the new head of Petroperú’s supply chain management who had been appointed just one day after the 18 October meeting between Castillo, Abudayeh and the manager general of the state oil company (named, funnily enough, Hugo Chávez). Castillo’s lawyer has requested before justice an habeas corpus preventing a raid on presidential palace and hampering investigation on the grounds that the prosecutor in charge of the case has posted on social networks comments supportive of Fujimori’s candidacy, presenting herself as ‘genetically anti-communist’ and calling Castillo and Perú Libre ‘communists, terrorists and corrupts’.


Castillo tried to regain some popularity by organizing few days before Christmas the deportation of 41 Venezuelan migrants (18 with a criminal record in Venezuela but not in Peru and 23 without any criminal record) towards Caracas. The president and his interior minister were intended to preside over a public ceremony in the airport just before the departure of the plane to celebrate the deportation of the Venezuelans but this has to be canceled at last minute as it turned out the aircraft hadn’t the legal authorization to enter Venezuela leading to the cancellation of the flight and the release of the 41 migrants.


Meanwhile the Twitter account of Perú Libre, between massive retweets of Vladimir Cerrón’s rants against ‘lawfare’ (latest iteration is about the accusation made against a Perú Libre congressman of having covered up the rape of a party member in the Perú Libre’s premises in Arequipa), NGOs and medias, is also posting photos of antisemitic placards accusing ‘terrorists from the US and Israel’ of organizing a COVID-19 third wave, claiming that ‘Jewish caviars’ (‘caviars’ seem to be the equivalent of the ‘champagne left’) are trying to oust Perú Libre from the government and denouncing the ‘pro-Jewish Perú 21’ newspaper as the mouthpiece of the ‘terrorist government of Israel’ in bed with ‘Zionist spies in Peru’ and as a ‘Zionist Masonic newspaper’. Note that they feel necessary to post that specific tweet twice on their account.

https://twitter.com/PERU_LIBRE1/status/1473539487988740097

Still, a Keiko Fujimori presidency would certainly have been even worse...

[Sir John Johns]

This new government is truly turning into a complete farce:

https://twitter.com/RealYeyoZa/status/1489295622528192514

...

https://twitter.com/DiegoQuispeSanc/status/1489283689196376067

[Sir John Johns]

The police is now raiding the headquarters of Verónika Mendoza’s Nuevo Perú.

https://twitter.com/NuevoPeruMov/status/1604138175403679744


Also, a probably relevant fact about yesterday's vote about moving elections to 2023:

https://twitter.com/MauricioZava/status/1603869346006466560

Legislative alert: here is the vote by which the advancement of the elections to 2023 has been rejected. Nine benches divided themselves in the vote.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Fuerza Popular voted in favor because it is the only party able to compete in the elections on the next year. The others ones are very, very aware of their feebleness.

[Sir John Johns]

Yes, apparently this the absolutely terrifying arsenal they are bragging having discovered there: four machetes (with bar codes still on them), a ski mask, slingshots and a box of nails (plus reportedly 'anti-democratic pamphlets').

https://twitter.com/PoliciaPeru/status/1604187880246722562

Accusations made about the raid having happened without the presence of a prosecutor, meaning the police has free rein to intimidate opposition parties.

[Sir John Johns]

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/1683655845249269762

Possibly 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/1683553803453202440

We 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.

[Sir John Johns]

* 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.

He abruptly died last week, the consequence of a cardiac decompensation that hit him while he was on his way to go by car to a convention (‘Perumin 2023’) organized by the mining lobby in Arequipa. After Guerra-García had collapsed in a small locality named Punta de Bombón (Arequipa Department), the person traveling with him bring the unconscious congressman to the only health center of the place but found it closed with no doctor to examine Guerra-García. Indeed, due to lack of financing and a shortage in doctors, the community is unable to operate a health center 24 hours a day. The unconscious Guerra-García was subsequently bring to the next closest medical center in Mollendo, about one half-hour by car from Punta de Bombón. There, the doctors could only pronounced the congressman dead.

The death of Guerra-García is highlighting the dilapidated state of the Peruvian public health system, in particular outside Lima, with lack of doctors (especially specialist doctors), shortage in medications and vaccines, absence of basic necessary equipment and insufficient opening hours and geographical coverage. The problem is blamed on the lack of public investment and financing, abuse of short-term contracts in the management of public health workers, excessive bureaucracy, reliance on the (interested) ‘generosity’ of private actors (the Punta de Bombón used to be partly financed by a mining company), politicization and incompetence of the local authorities in the management of the healthcare sector (the contract with the mining company was terminated by a former Arequipa governor without explanation, presumably because of his anti-extractivist views) and corruption (said governor has since been removed for bribery and is now facing a trial for corruption).

Members of the Congress now should elected a successor to Guerra at the position of first vice-president; the alternate of Guerra – a former member of the communist Revolutionary Vanguard turn an interior minister under Toledo turn a Fujimorist hack – has already been sworn as a titular congressman.

* 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.

Amuruz has just been embroiled into a new scandal related to a fiesta: the party she was attending for the birthday of her presumed partner (a former congressman) ended with a guest being shot to death by a man during a dispute involving a woman. The murderer is, according to the Peruvian police, a member of the Los Malditos de Bellavista criminal organization (specialized into contract killing), raising question about why such individual was attending the birthday party of Amuruz’s partner.