❈ ❈ ❈

Peruvian Congress Strikes Down Proposals for 2023 Elections, Protests Continue

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

On Wednesday February 1, Peru’s de-facto government led by Dina Boluarte presented a new bill to Congress that proposes to advance general elections and hold them on the second Sunday of October 2023. The step came hours after the Congress voted down a bill to hold elections in December 2023. Holding fresh elections this year is one of the fundamental demands of the hundreds of thousands of Peruvians, who have been taking to the streets across the country since the coup d’état against President Pedro Castillo on December 7, 2022.

The bill, approved by Boluarte’s Council of Ministers, proposes four special transitional provisions. The first provision specifies that the country’s current president will conclude their mandate on December 31, 2023, the legislators on December 29, 2023, and the representatives to the Andean Parliament on December 31, 2026. It also specifies that the new president, who will be elected in the October elections, will call for the elections for the representatives to the Andean Parliament alongside the regional and municipal elections in 2026. The new representatives will assume office on January 1, 2027 and conclude their representation on July 27, 2028.

The second provision establishes that the new head of state will take office on December 31, 2023, and conclude their term on July 28, 2028. Similarly, it adds that the lawmakers will take the oath on December 29, 2023 and conclude their term on July 26, 2028.

The third provision states that the electoral authorities should take appropriate actions to ensure the optimal and timely execution of the elections. The fourth states that Congress can approve other laws for the holding of the general elections in 2023, until February 28, 2023.

In a press conference, de-facto Prime Minister Alberto Otárola explained that the bill followed Boluarte’s promise to present an urgent bill for early elections if the parliament rejected the one it was debating. He stressed that Boluarte will not step down from office, despite repeated calls for her immediate resignation. He requested the Congress to approve the bill seeking the advancement of presidential and legislative elections.

Congress rejects early elections

Peruvian Congress has rejected two bills that called for elections to be held in 2023.

On February 1, the plenary session of the Congress, 53 votes in favor, 68 against and two abstentions, rejected the bill presented by Legislator Hernando Guerra García of the far-right Popular Force party. The bill, as it was a constitutional reform, needed the support of 87 of the 130 parliamentarians.

The now rejected bill sought to bring forward the general elections to December 2023. It proposed that the current president and legislators will conclude their mandates on April 30, 2024, while the new president and the lawmakers will assume their respective positions on May 1, 2024 and on April 30, 2024, and conclude their terms on July 28, 2026, and July 26, 2026, respectively.

Legislators associated with left-wing parties, who rejected Guerra García’s bill, demanded that the advancement of elections be accompanied by a referendum for a Constituent Assembly, another fundamental demand of the protesters. These parties instead had rallied behind a bill presented by Jaime Quito of the left-wing Free Peru party on February 2, which proposes that the elections be held in the next 120 days and that a referendum be installed to consult the citizens if they agree or not with the formation of a Constituent Assembly to draft a new Political Constitution.

Legislator Isabel Cortez of the progressive Together For Peru party, said that “a constituent assembly is the clamor of the people” and stressed “we (the legislators) must give this solution.”

“When I assumed the responsibility of being a member of congress, I swore for a constituent assembly. Why? Because it is the clamor of the people that has been heard for many years. In every march, in every meeting, in every assembly of trade unions, a referendum for a constituent assembly is the only thing that is pronounced. It is not as the friends of Fujimorismo say that it is our whim. A constituent assembly is the clamor, the request of many Peruvians at the national level,” said Cortez during the debate.

“I believe that it is time to reach a consensus, an agreement, and ask ourselves what is better for our country, what is that our country asking for at this moment, what are the Peruvians asking for in the streets, a referendum, a constituent assembly, and for Ms. Dina Boluarte to leave. This is the clamor of many Peruvians and I believe that many of our colleagues agree here and therefore we must give this solution,” she added.

Quito’s bill was defeated with only 48 votes in favor, and 75 against.

In December 2022, Congress had already approved a bill to bring forward elections from April 2026 to April 2024. A final vote on it is due in February. However, in the face of relentless nationwide protests, demanding Boluarte’s resignation, Congress’ closure, elections this year, and a new constitution, the de-facto president has urged the Congress to further move up elections.

Mass protests demanding structural changes continue

On Thursday, February 2, while the parliamentarians continued to debate bills on early elections in the Congress, thousands of citizens marched peacefully through the streets across the country, pressing for their demands for structural socio-political changes.

In the capital Lima, the protesters demonstrated in public squares such as Plaza Dos de Mayo and Plaza San Martín, as well as in the vicinity of public institutions such as the Congress of the Republic and the Government Palace.

Massive mobilizations were recorded in Arequipa, Cusco, and Puno, among other regions. Workers from diverse sectors organized strikes in different cities. Additionally, according to the Ombudsman’s Office, over six dozen roads were blocked in at least 24 provinces.

Since December 7, 2022, Indigenous and peasants communities from the long-neglected countryside of Peru, together with students and workers, have been taking to the streets demanding radical political changes in the country so that “what happened to Castillo, doesn’t happen to another popular leader.”

Castillo was overthrown in a legislative coup carried out by the right-wing opposition majority Congress on December 7, after he tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree. He was swiftly arrested following his dismissal for allegedly “breaching constitutional order.” On December 15, the Peruvian judiciary extended Castillo’s 7-days preventive detention to 18 months on the Prosecutor’s Office’s request, which is investigating him for the crime of rebellion, among others.

The demonstrators have reiterated that they will remain in the streets against the government, despite the strong repression by the security forces that has left more than 60 people dead and hundreds injured in the past two months of social uprising.

According to a report by the Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics (CELAG), the Boluarte government has recorded one of the highest levels of repression and violence in the region. During its first six weeks of administration, it recorded the second highest death toll from police and military repression of social protests since 2000.

(Peoples Dispatch is an international media organization with the mission of highlighting voices from people’s movements and organizations across the globe.)

❈ ❈ ❈

“Our Demands Are Now Political:” an Interview on Peru With Lourdes Huanca Atencio

Elisa Fuenzalida

[The peasant uprising in Peru has achieved what seemed impossible: the left and academia have been left speechless. Or at least it seems so, since their analyses have been silenced under the popular Indigenous clamor, which has organized delegations from the four “suyos” (1) of Peru in “The Taking of Lima,” as the march to the capital has been called.

Few suspected that the removal of Pedro Castillo was more than a political crisis in partisan terms. Rather, it was the beginning of a symbolic and historical cataclysm, threatening the very foundations of the colonial pact still in force in the country that is seen abroad as the land of electronic cumbia, magical villages, and Ayahuasca retreats.

The story begins with an electoral campaign strongly marked by racist violence directed at Castillo, a peasant and rural teacher originally from the Northern Andes. Insults such as “donkey,” “brute,” “illiterate,” and “beast,” among others, have a genealogy clearly located in the tradition of the haciendas, authentic fiefdoms under the control of a white oligarchy until their expropriation during the Agrarian Reform in 1969. Since then, colonial-racist interests have been busy maintaining the narrative of the dumb, at best naïve, Indigenous person, who wastes the capitalist potential of the land and does not know what to do with freedom.

Lourdes Huanca Atencio, President of the Federation of Peasant, Artisan, Indigenous, Native and Salaried Women of Peru (FENMUCARINAP), is currently in Europe, asking for the support and solidarity of the international community.]

❈ ❈

E.F.: What motivates this tour?

L.H.A.: I have come to denounce the militarization of our country, because they are killing us one by one. Our right to protest is being brutally violated. It has reached a point where we can no longer even walk freely. To speak of peasant or Indigenous people in Peru under this dictatorial regime of terror is tantamount to being considered a terrorist. All of the government agencies are colluding, and we have no one to protect us or guarantee our rights. The police and the army shoot us at point-blank range; the legislature and the executive give orders together. The church’s pronouncements are lukewarm.

E.F.: What is the human rights situation?

L.H.A.: This began before the president was elected when, during the campaign, the press called him all kinds of racist insults. We, rural men and women, felt those insults as if they were also for us—because they were! Since Castillo’s dismissal, the response to our peaceful protest has been bloodthirsty. Sixty dead and rising, more than a thousand wounded, arbitrary arrests, missing persons, sexual violence and torture. In addition, we have evidence that the army infiltrates agents in the demonstrations to generate all kinds of disturbances and, thus, criminalize us. We have Congressmen demanding: “Shoot the terrorists.” The police are shouting at us: “Shut up, Indian!” We are in the hands of a genocidal and racist government. There are no guarantees for Indigenous lives.

E.F.: What interests are behind these actions?

L.H.A.: Those of the big transnational corporations, the mining companies, the oligopolies. This year is crucial for them in terms of renewing the concession contracts on the extractive exploitation of our territories. In the Puno region there is lithium, what they call white gold. Before this massacre took place, the U.S. Ambassador spoke with the executive branch and Dina Boluarte. Immediately after this meeting, a state of emergency was declared.

They want us as a tourist attraction, as decorative objects, as “the cholita with her llama” for their photos, not as people conscious of the knowledge they safeguard and as political agents. We know that while they poison the Earth, we cool the planet and guarantee food sovereignty. We know that cities do not feed on gold, silver, and copper, that they depend on us for food. We know that our worldview is invaluable for the survival of life on this planet. And today we have risen up against racism, against the contempt for Indigenous blood.

They thought that since Pedro Castillo was of peasant origin, it would not be difficult to get him out of the way. They believe that the impoverished education reserved for us has made us submissive, but they have been mistaken. We are not going to back down. The only thing they have left is to kill us.

E.F.: What are the demands?

L.H.A.: They are clear: dismissal of Dina Boluarte, freedom for Pedro Castillo, justice for the more than 60 murdered protesters, closure of Congress and installation of the Plurinational and Parity Constituent Assembly. Previous governments have tried to silence our demands for justice with schools and roads. It is not enough. Our demands are now political.

E.F.: What does a Plurinational Parity Assembly mean?

L.H.A.: There is an abysmal difference between what we consider “buen vivir” (good living) and what is considered development in the capital. For us, the most important things are land, seeds, and water. The Plurinational Assembly is about respect; about participating in the processes of political deliberation based on the full recognition of our value and political legitimacy. Regarding the parity aspect, we want women to be considered as agents within this construction.

E.F.: What is the status of the articulation process between the different peasant and Indigenous communities, unions, associations, and collectives?

L.H.A.: We entered into this dialogue a year and a half ago—since President Castillo took office—always with the aim of working on a new constitution. Articulation is a process and a project. It is not easy, but we are getting closer and closer to reaching consensus. It’s not only with them, though: we also need the support of the academy; the intellectuals.

Many in these communities, both academics and leftist activists might be tempted to want to intervene in the peasant deliberation processes. Some, to this day, still think their role is to guide them. It has happened before…

We will defend our rights and demand respect. There are times when we will be open and receptive and times when we will raise our voice, as we are doing now. I respect intellectuals if they respect me, but many have to shake off the need for prominence. They don’t have the answers to everything. But we do not lose hope. We have great allies like Héctor Bejar and within some sectors of feminism.

E.F.: What tasks arise from all this?

L.H.A.: When there is an earthquake, the walls fall down. The roof falls down. But then comes the calm, and from there, an opportunity to build something better; to lay very strong foundations so that the new house is resilient. The most difficult thing will be to abandon the legacy of the neoliberal right-wing, which always puts the individual before everything. We have to unlearn a lot and turn our gaze towards the collective.

E.F.: Are we at the beginning of an anti-colonial revolution?

L.H.A.: Absolutely. Fear is over.

Notes.

1. The suyos (in Quechua: suyu, “nation, partiality, region”) were the four great territorial divisions of the Inca Empire, in which its various provinces, or huamanis (in Quechua: wamani) were grouped. The group of the four suyos was known as Tahuantinsuyo (Tawantinsuyu), which means the four suyos together, or the four Nations. Migrants are now considered the fifth suyo.

(Elisa Fuenzalida is a researcher and cultural worker. Courtesy: Arts of the Working Class, a Berlin based magazine.)