PERU: Castillo’s survival hanging in the balance
Thank you for reading LatinNews' chosen article from the Latin American Weekly Report, produced since 1967. The full report can be accessed here: Latin American Weekly Report - 17 November 2022
The pressure on Peru’s embattled president, Pedro Castillo, is ramping up. The congressional subcommittee on constitutional accusations approved two separate constitutional complaints against Castillo this week. They will now both be passed up to the permanent committee of congress, which, if it concurs, will submit the complaints to the full congress. Approval of these accusations would require only a simple majority rather than the two-thirds majority which remained out of reach in congress when Castillo faced impeachment votes on two previous occasions.?
In the space of six days the subcommittee on constitutional accusations approved two complaints that threaten President Castillo’s political survival. The first, on 11 November, which sneaked through by just 11 votes to 10, was an accusation of treason against Castillo for comments he made to?CNN?en Espa?ol?in January this year over the possibility of staging a referendum on granting Bolivia sovereign access to the sea.?The second, on 16 November, which was approved by a bigger margin of 13 votes to 8, was a constitutional complaint presented by the attorney general, Patricia Benavides, on 11 October against Castillo for leading a criminal organisation, influence peddling, and collusion. Both complaints are controversial.
Deputy Diego Bazán of the right-wing Avanza País promoted the first complaint. He argued that Castillo’s comments contravened the constitution and that he had “put the integrity of the nation at grave risk”. Bazán was joined by a further seven right-wing deputies and two from the centrist Acción Popular (AP), while left-wing and left-of-centre deputies opposed the action; Norma Yarrow (Avanza País) and Hitler Saavedra (Somos Perú) did not vote. Castillo’s legal defence insisted that the statute of limitations had expired in July and that he could hardly be accused of treason for expressing an opinion when he had made no attempt to organise a referendum over Bolivian access to the sea let alone grant it.
The constitutional complaint brought by Benavides won the support of all of the representatives of right-wing and centrist parties on the subcommittee, while being opposed by those on the left. The president of the subcommittee, Lady Camones, of the populist conservative Alianza para el Progreso (APP), said that congress should “guarantee the search for truth within the framework of respect for due process” for the sake of the Peruvian people.
Deputies from the left-wing Perú Libre (PL), as well as its various splinter groups sitting on the subcommittee, insisted that the complaint violated the constitution, which rules out prosecution of a sitting president for corruption. When Benavides presented the complaint in October she adjured deputies to “decide on the course that [it] should follow within the framework of the United Nations Convention against Corruption”.
The complaints will now need to be approved by the 33-member permanent committee of congress. If it agrees with the subcommittee then they will be presented to the full congress. The whole of the permanent committee, including the president of congress, José Williams, would be barred from voting again at this point. As such, the complaints would pass with the support of 49 of the 96 legislators eligible to vote in the full congress, lifting Castillo’s immunity to be prosecuted by the supreme court.
OAS mission. The lower bar for approval of the constitutional complaints is a threat to President Castillo, but the process will take some time to play out yet. Before then, Castillo will receive a high-level group appointed by the permanent council of the Organization of American States (OAS), which is scheduled to arrive in Peru on 20 November for a four-day visit for talks with political actors on all sides of the debate, as well as representatives of other institutions and civil society groups. The permanent council voted to send the high-level group at Castillo’s behest.
Thank you for reading LatinNews' chosen article from the Latin American Weekly Report, produced since 1967. The full report can be accessed here: Latin American Weekly Report - 17 November 2022
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