Peru Congress opens door to early elections amid unrest

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Congress tentatively endorsed a plan on Tuesday to hold early elections in an attempt to defuse a national political crisis marked by deadly unrest after lawmakers ousted President Pedro Castillo.

The proposal, approved by 91 of the legislature’s 130 members, would push up to April 2024 elections for president and congress originally scheduled for 2026. The plan — which seeks to add one article to Peru’s constitution — must be ratified by another two-thirds majority in the next annual legislative session for it to be adopted.

The measure has the backing of caretaker President Dina Boluarte, who took over from Castillo after the former schoolteacher tried to dissolve Congress on Dec. 7 — a move widely condemned by even his leftist supporters though it touched off deadly nationwide protests that continue. After the failed move, Castillo was swiftly arrested.

The early elections proposal failed to muster enough votes last week after leftist lawmakers abstained, conditioning their support on the promise of a constitutional assembly to overhaul Peru’s political charter — something that conservatives denounce as putting Peru’s free market economic model at risk. On Tuesday, they dropped that demand.

“Don’t be blind,” Boluarte said over the weekend, slamming lawmakers for not listening to voters’ demands. “Look at the people and take action in line with what they are asking.”

But even as Boluarte seeks to restore order, her caretaker government is being buffeted by fellow leftists. Chief among them is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has sharply critized Peru’s conservative media and business establishment for the classist, sometimes bigoted way it portrayed Castillo during his 17-month presidency.

On Tuesday, Boluarte’s government expelled Mexico’s ambassador, giving him 72 hours to leave the country, in protest of what it said was López Obrador’s repeated and “unacceptable interference” in Peru’s internal affairs.