Twelve ministers have resigned in the last hours while the voices for their resignation multiply
At least two dead, 94 injured and several missing after clashes with the Police
The president of Peru, Manuel Merino, contemplates whether he is facing the last hours of his brief mandate as a result of the multiplication of voices demanding his resignation, amid the exodus of Cabinet ministers, and to appease the social crisis unleashed this week and which has culminated in the protests of the last hours in Lima, which have left at least two dead and 94 injured – 63 hospitalized – according to the Ministry of Health.
As an example of this tension, the deputy of Somos Peru, Rennan Espinoza, has assured that “many” are still “awake waiting for a decision” from Merino, in reference to the requests for his resignation. “It cannot wait for a bureaucratic hour,” he said in RPP.
Merino has spent tonight at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, where he has participated in a meeting with the remaining ministers to evaluate his options for a final decision. In this sense, Congressman Espinoza has transferred that the interlocutors have recommended to the president that he wait “for Congress to remove him.” “It seems to me a deplorable position,” he added to Canal N.
At the same time, it was announced that two parties, the Broad Front, a coalition that brings together various forces and political and social movements of the Peruvian left, and the Alliance for Progress (APP) have presented their respective proposals for a motion of censure this Sunday. against the new Peruvian government, which emerged after the resignation of the previous president, Martín Vizcarra, in a motion of censure promoted by his opponents after several accusations of corruption were known against him.
At the moment and pending the result of these requests, President of the Congress of Peru, Luis Valdez, has already requested this Saturday the resignation of President Merino.
Valdez has summoned the board of spokespersons at 08:00 this Sunday (14:00 in Spain) to evaluate the resignation of the president and “find a way to solve the political crisis” and that “it does not get out of hand”. indicated in the television channel Canal N, and has asked Merino to evaluate “his immediate resignation.”
CALM IN THE STREETS
For now, calm has returned to the streets but the organizers have announced new demonstrations this Sunday, if nothing changes, starting at 2:00 p.m. local time.
Meanwhile, the Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office has announced the start of investigations to identify those responsible for the deaths of two young people during the protests and has asked the security forces to carry out a containment exercise to prevent further incidents.
The two young men, identified as Jack Brian Pintado Sanchez (22 years old) and Jordan Inti Sotelo Camargo (24), died on Saturday night. Pintado died of “multiple holes in the face and face from a firearm projectile,” according to the medical report published by the Peruvian National Police during the early hours of this Sunday. Sotelo Camargo died from “a firearm projectile in the thorax, near the heart.”
The Prosecutor’s Office, in a statement published on its Twitter account, has lamented the death of both young people and guaranteed that the process will be carried out “with the transparency, objectivity and speed” that corresponds.
The priority right now is to find the approximately twenty missing after the protests. For now, the Federation of Students of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru has reported the appearance of six students that it considered untraceable.
AWARE OF MINISTERS
A total of twelve ministers have left the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, Ántero Flores-Aráoz, in the last few hours, in a scare that began early last night by the Minister of Women, Patricia Teullet Pipoli.
Subsequently, prominent headlines such as Walter Chávez (Defense), Gastón Rodríguez (Interior), Carlos Castillo (Energy and Mines), Abel Salinas (Health), or Delia Muñoz (Justice and Human Rights) resigned.
Likewise, another ten vice ministers and two senior officials of the Ministry of the Environment (Minam) have also resigned irrevocably from their positions and expressed their strongest “rejection of the systematic coercion of legitimate protests.”
