Lima, January 5 (Prensa Latina) The National Electoral Commission (JNE) denounced today that a bill proposing to reduce the mandate of the highest authorities of the electoral bodies in Peru intends to violate the autonomy of these bodies.
According to a statement by the JNE, the project, presented by the far-right party Avanza País and supported by banks of the same line, also lacks any solid arguments.
The proposal proposes an exceptional law that will determine that the heads of the JNE, Jorge Salas, and the National Office for Electoral Processes (ONPE), Piero Alessandro Corvetto, resign in April this year and not in the last months of 2024, if his irrevocable mandate expires.
The statement recalls that the head of the JNE was elected by the Supreme Court and that of the ONPE by the National Judicial Council, both after a public competition.
The right-wing initiative precedes the far-right bloc’s hostility towards both officials for not yielding to their attempts to annul Pedro Castillo’s 2021 presidential election, for which they allege fraud that they have never proved.
They have since proposed sacking Salas and Crovetto for not offering them any guarantees, although the validity of that choice has been confirmed by national and international observers and a parliamentary inquiry conducted by the critics, which found no evidence of the allegation of fraud. Congresswoman Patricia Juárez of the far-right party Fuerza Popular argued that the leaders of the JNE and ONPE must act in the same way as the executive and parliament agreed in a gesture of detachment to bring the elections forward.
Progressive analysts and parliamentarians opposed the project, denouncing it as part of a right-wing project to control electoral bodies in order to retain full power.
The UN newspaper was more vocal, calling the project an attempted “electoral coup” by the discredited legislature, which has polled with more than 80 percent opposition.
Constitutionalist Paolo Aldea explained that Congress and its right-wing majority control the Constitutional Court, coordinate with prosecutors and have the support of the judiciary, and are now trying to control the electoral bodies in order to seize all power.
ro/mrs