Police officers stand guard outside the Congress building as lawmakers discuss the progress of general elections in Lima, Peru December 20, 2022. (Xinhua/Mariana Bazo)
LIMA, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) — Peru’s Congress, in its first discussion this Tuesday, approved bringing forward the South American country’s general elections to April 2024, allowing the current executive and legislative administration’s mandate to end in July this year.
The project, presented again by the President of the Constitutional Legislative Commission, MP Hernando Guerra, was approved by a majority of 93, exceeding the minimum 87 votes needed to move on to a second discussion in the next legislature, which begins on Sept March 1 begins , 2023.
Meanwhile, this proposal, promoted by the country’s President Dina Boluarte, had only one abstention and 30 votes against, mostly from congressmen from Peru Libre’s left bank and others, and from the ultra-conservative Renovación Popular.
It was adopted after Parliament today reconsidered the proposal to bring forward the elections, which had been voted and rejected last Friday and which proposed bringing the elections forward to December next year.
Under the new norm, the votes will take place in April 2024, reducing the presidential term to July 28 of the same year, and that of congressmen and deputies before the Andean Parliament to July 26.
According to Guerra, the amendments to the draft law were taken into account, which the “electoral bodies affirmed the need to respect the deadlines”, so the extended deadline was maintained despite the fact that the President of the National Electoral Commission (JNE), Jorge Salas Arenas, declared , his institution is “capable of conducting and completing the elections at the end of 2023”.
However, the official clarified that for this process it was necessary to omit the primaries, “which are an essential necessity of the process.”
During today’s debate, MEP Ruth Luque from the centre-left Cambio Democrático party criticized the new rule and said the original proposal should be kept in order to bring the elections forward to December 2023.
Meanwhile, left-wing Perú Libre’s María Agüero and Waldemar Cerrón insisted that priority must be given to a possible constituent assembly before voting on the initiative.
Amid demonstrations that have already killed 26 people and have led to a proposal to increase the vote, President Boluarte received representatives of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) at the Government Palace in Lima today.
During the meeting, the head of state assured that it was in her executive’s interest to anticipate the general elections in 2023 and that in the meantime her government would “promote calm” and build bridges for dialogue.
The technical visit of the Court follows the invitation of the Peruvian government on December 15 to contribute to peace, dialogue and “transparency” of state actions in the face of the crisis that the South American country is going through.
LIMA, Dec. 20, 2022 (Xinhua) — Police officers stand guard in front of the Congress building as lawmakers discuss the progress of general elections in Lima, Peru, on Dec. 20, 2022. (Xinhua/Mariana Bazo)