UPDATE: President Pedro Castillo Arrested
The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, has been arrested and is being held in the police station located on Avenida España in the city of Lima. This is following a vote by the majority right-wing congress to oust him in a legislative coup. The Military and the Police have declared their support for the congress, according to La Republica.
On Wednesday, President Pedro Castillo decreed the temporary dissolution of Congress and established an “Emergency Government” that will rule Peru in the coming months while the judiciary and electoral powers are restructured.
This came just hours before Peruvian lawmakers were expected to debate a new impeachment motion against him, which could have immediately removed him from the country’s presidency.
His decision also includes the call for new parliamentary elections whose purpose would be to generate the conditions for the drafting of a new constitution for Peru. The call for elections will take place within a period of no more than nine months, according to Castillo.
The Peruvian president also established a nation-wide curfew as of December 7, which will be in effect from 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
All these decisions prompted the rejection of political parties, including Free Peru, the party that sponsored Castillo’s presidential candidacy in 2021.
Previously, however, Free Peru president Vladimir Cerron announced that his party would not support the impeachment process because he considered it a sneaky way to break with the democratic order.
“Free Peru will not support the ongoing coup. We are against hyper-parliamentarism, the press is not reliable in the country, no testimony is corroborated, but we do not put our hands to fire for President Castillo either. We will not support the vacancy,” he said.
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