Source: Servindi.
The coup plotters are once again preparing a climate of vacancy in order to destabilise the government. Rafael López Aliaga and Patricia Chirinos are the protagonists of this attack.
Led by the ultra-right-wing former presidential candidate Rafael López Aliaga, the coup plotters in Peru have begun to materialise their demands for the removal of President Pedro Castillo from office.
The latest to do so was Patricia Chirinos, a member of parliament for Avanza País, who during Thursday’s plenary session of Congress presented a motion to remove Castillo from office, which failed.
The desire to remove the president from power has existed since he took office, but today it resounds with force due to recent statements by López Aliaga and the call for a march for the vacancy.
The head of the coup
In the last week, the former presidential candidate of Renovación Popular, a far-right party, has been taking to the television channels to give free rein to his coup attempt.
On Sunday 14 November, on América Televisión’s Cuarto Poder – a channel whose news director was accused of favouring the candidacy of right-wing Keiko Fujimori in the last elections – he said:
“People are fed up with this gentleman [Castillo] […] all over Peru, wherever I go [they tell me] that this gentleman should go, that he should go at once,” López Aliaga said.
And he added: “In Congress, yes, Castillo can be removed from office […] If Congress does not support a vacancy quickly, this misgovernment will continue in the coming months”.
Days later, on Wednesday 17 on Canal N – América TV’s sister cable channel – López Aliaga went on the attack again, analysing a possible vacancy scenario against Castillo and his vice-president, Dina Boluarte.
“It has to be both [vacating Castillo and Boluarte]. […] Yes, there can be a presidential and vice-presidential vacancy. […] Hopefully before the end of the year,” he said.
In line with this request, he announced the call for a march to be held this Saturday 27th in Lima. “Vacancy now!”, is the title of this call, which will start in Jesús Maria.
Call for vacancy
But while López Aliaga is walking around on television, there are already those in Congress who unashamedly support him. One of them is Patricia Chirinos, member of parliament for Avanza País and Third Vice-President of Congress.
Chirinos, who recently starred in an advert calling for the incineration of the corrupt, took advantage of this morning’s plenary session to present a motion of vacancy against President Pedro Castillo.
“I come to this chamber to ask for the presidential vacancy of President Castillo, I have the presidential vacancy motion ready, we need the signatures of 26 congressmen,” he said.
However, the motion failed because it did not have enough signatures, forcing the president of Congress, María del Carmen Alva, to address another pending issue in the plenary.
Chirinos’ motion is a contradiction to what Alva had said the day before in the Executive CADE, who had assured that Congress had no plans to promote a presidential vacancy.
Some ministers, such as Anahí Durand, of the Women and Vulnerable Populations portfolio, and Hernando Cevallos of Health, have questioned this morning’s coup attempt.
“We have been working for more than 100 days in the midst of the worst crisis, but unfortunately congressional coup plotters prefer to attack the will of the people,” said Durand.
Meanwhile, Cevallos said that “there are sectors of the right that do not want to recognise that they lost the elections, that do not want to respect that a programme won, with more or less votes, but it won”.
