Kuczynski presidency Following the
2016 election of
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to the presidency, tensions between the
PPK-led executive branch and the opposition-led congress, dominated by
Fujimorists from the
Popular Force (
Divided government), rose. Corruption scandals plagued the government for the first year, as well as the
Odebrecht scandal, national protests and strikes, and cabinet resignations.
Executive-Congress conflict begins On 17 August 2017, members of Congress belonging to
Popular Force filed a motion of interpellation against the Minister of Education
Marilú Martens who was in negotiations with the representatives of the teachers, in search of the solution to
a prolonged teacher strike. On 25 August, the plenary session of the Congress approved the motion of interpellation, with 79 votes in favor, 12 against and 6 abstentions. The votes in favor were from the bench of Popular Force,
APRA,
Broad Front and
Popular Action. The date of the interpellation was set as 8 September. Martens answered a list of 40 questions, mainly about the teachers' strike that still persisted. Martens acknowledged deficiencies in facing the teachers' strike, but assured that her management would not reverse the recognition of meritocracy within the teaching profession. On 13 September, the Popular Force congresspeople announced that they would submit a motion of censure against Martens, since they claimed that she had not responded satisfactorily to the questions of the interpellation. Faced with this threat of censorship (which would be the second against a head of Education in less than a year), Prime Minister
Fernando Zavala asked Congress a question of confidence for the full ministerial cabinet. Zavala's request was criticized by Congress, stating that Zavala was in solidarity with a minister who was questioned, endangering her entire cabinet, and even more, when the motion of censure had not yet been made official. It was also said that the "renewal of trust" was something that the Constitution did not contemplate. In any case, the Board of Spokespersons of the Congress summoned Zavala on 14 September to support her request for confidence. Zavala presented himself to the plenary session of the Congress with the ministers and presented his request in 12 minutes; his argument focused on the government's intention to defend the education policy that was intended, according to him, to undermine the education minister's censure. Then they proceeded to the parliamentary debate. On 17 September, Second Vice President
Mercedes Aráoz was sworn in as president of the
Council of Ministers of Peru and with this, five new ministers were announced: Claudia Cooper Fort (Economy), Idel Vexler (Education), Enrique Mendoza Ramírez (Justice and Human Rights), Fernando d'Alessio (Health) and
Carlos Bruce (Housing). The new head of the cabinet was sworn in with the 18 ministers in a ceremony held in the Court of Honor of the
Government Palace. On 6 October, the vote of confidence was given and if it were to fail, the president would have the right to dissolve Congress and call new elections, as the Constitution of 1993 said. The vote of confidence was delayed until 12 October, beginning with the exhibitions of the new cabinet led by Aráoz and subsequent intervention of the different political caucuses of the Congress until the next day. It resulted in 83 votes in favor and 17 against. Many political figureheads such as the media reported on the denial of confidence in the first cabinet; journalist Rosa María Palacios sent a message to the president asking him to dissolve the Congress and warned that "Fujimorism has been trapped. Journalist César Hildebrandt also sent a message to the president saying that "the country requires him to confront the Fujimorist Congress". A former constitutional lawyer in an interview said that the former president of the Council of Ministers
Fernando Zavala "is sacrificing for state policies", the former president of the Council of Ministers
Pedro Cateriano warned that "
Keiko Fujimori, leader of the Popular Force party, wants to lead a
coup d'etat". On 15 November, through Bill No. 2133, Congressman
Mauricio Mulder presented the Mulder Law, which prohibited state advertising in private media and on 28 February 2018 approved the bill by the Permanent Commission of the Congress with 20 in favor, 3 against and 14 abstentions. The ruling was approved at the urging of
APRA and
Fujimorism on 15 June 2018 with 70 votes in favor, 30 against and 7 abstentions. and it was published on 18 June 2018 in the Legal Rules of the Official Gazette El Peruano. In November 2017, the Lava Jato Commission, a congressional commission chaired by
Rosa Bartra investigating
Odebrecht and its activities in Peru, as well as
the concurrent scandal, received confidential information that President Kuczynski had had labor ties with this company, which went back to the time when he was both Prime Minister and the Minister of the Economy between 2004 and 2006, under the government of
Alejandro Toledo, despite the fact that since the outbreak of the Odebrecht case, Kuczynski had denied him on several occasions. The Commission then asked the Odebrecht company for details of its relationship with Kuczynski, which were publicly disclosed on 13 December. It was revealed then that Westfield Capital, an investment banking advisory firm, founded and directed by Kuczynski had carried out seven consultancies for Odebrecht between November 2004 and December 2007 for millions of dollars, that is, coinciding with the time when Kuczynski had been Minister of Economy (2004–2005) and Prime Minister (2005–2006). The information also revealed that another company closely related to Kuczynski, First Capital, formed by its
Chilean partner Gerardo Sepúlveda, had also provided consulting services for Odebrecht between 2005 and 2013.
First attempted impeachment next to his vice-presidents,
Martín Vizcarra and
Mercedes Aráoz, a speech prior to his first impeachment vote. The opposition, led by
Popular Force, demanded the resignation of
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and threatened his
impeachment if he did not do so. The
Broad Front support holding an immediate impeachment vote. On 14 December, Kuczynski, through a
message to the nation, denied the accusations and said he would not resign his position. In his defense, he claimed to have no relationship with the company First Capital, which was the sole property of Sepúlveda, and that only one of the payments mentioned had to do with him, the one dated in 2012, when he no longer held any ministerial positions. As for Westfield Capital, although he acknowledged that it was his sole proprietorship, he affirmed that he was never under his direction and administration while he was Prime Minister, and that the contracts dated at that time had been signed by Sepúlveda, his partner. He also noted that all payments to his company were legal, and that they were duly registered, billed and banked. Kuczunski's explanations did not convince the opposition, and he was accused of continuing to lie, especially in relation to the fact that he had left Westfield Capital when he was minister, when, according to public records, he always figured as director of that company. Although PPK argued that there had been a "Chinese wall", an expression used in business to refer to when the partner or owner has no contact or receive information on the management of the company, while in public office (but in the case of Wesfield Capital, being a company where Kuczynski was its sole agent, it is unclear how this "Chinese wall" could be made). Faced with the refusal of the president to resign, several of the opposition caucuses of Congress then proposed to submit their position to the vacancy. The Broad Front submitted a motion for the vacancy request to be debated in the plenary session of the Congress. The congresspersons of Popular Force, APRA and the Alliance for Progress joined the request and the motion surpassed more than the 26 signatures needed to proceed with the process. Once the motion was approved, the debate began on 15 December and lasted until later that day. The opposition legislators who introduced the motion cited
a moral incapacity when they denounced that the president lied in the statements he gave about his ties with
Odebrecht. The congresspeople demanded that the due process be followed, reproaching the fact that the opposition proceeded with unusual speed and that several of its members had already decided to empty the president without having heard his defense. They also questioned the fact that a single report from Odebrecht was considered sufficient evidence, thereby overtly dispensing with the investigation that demanded such a delicate and far-reaching case. According to the regulations, the vote of 40% of competent congressmen was needed for the admission of the vacancy request. As 118 congressmen were present, only 48 votes were needed, which was widely exceeded, as they voted 93 in favor and 17 against; these last ones were, in their great majority, those of the pro-government caucus. Once the vacancy request was approved, the Congress agreed that on 21 December, Kuczynski should appear before the plenary session of the Congress to make his disclaimers; then it would proceed to debate and finally vote to decide the presidential vacancy, needed for this 87 votes of the total of 130 congressmen. On the appointed day, Kuczynski went to Congress to exercise his defense, accompanied by his lawyer Alberto Borea Odría. The defense began with the speech of the president himself, in which he denied having committed any act of corruption. Then came Borea's defense, which had as its axis the consideration that the vacancy request was an exaggeration because you could not accuse a president of the Republic without demonstrating with irrefutable evidence his "permanent moral incapacity", a concept that the congressmen did not they had apparently very clear, because strictly the constitutional precept would be referring to a mental incapacity. He considered that the offenses or imputed crimes had to be ventilated first in the investigating commission, before drawing hasty conclusions. He also rejected that PPK has repeatedly lied about his relationship with Odebrecht (argument that the Fujimoristas used to justify their permanent moral incapacity), because the facts in question had happened twelve years ago and he did not have to have them present in detail. After the speech of Borea, the congressional debate that lasted fourteen hours began. Voting for the vacancy took place after eleven o'clock at night, with the following result: 78 votes in favor, 19 against and 21 abstentions. One of the benches,
New Peru, retired before the voting, because to say of its members they did not want to follow the game to
Fujimorism. Since 87 votes were needed to proceed with the vacancy, this was dismissed. The whole Popular Force bench voted in favor of the vacancy, with the exception of 10 of its members, led by
Kenji Fujimori, who abstained, and who thus decided the result. The rumor spread that this dissident group, which would later be called the "Avengers", had negotiated its votes with the government in exchange for the presidential pardon in favor of Alberto Fujimori, its historical leader who was then imprisoned. After the Popular Force bench and led by Kenji announced the formation of a new political group named
Cambio 21, which would support the government. , 28 December 2017 On 24 December 2017, Kuczynski
granted a humanitarian pardon to
Alberto Fujimori, who had been imprisoned for 12 years, with a sentence of 25 years for crimes of human rights violations committed during the
Shining Path insurgency. The government assured that the pardon had been decided for purely humanitarian reasons, in view of the various physical ills afflicting the former president of the Republic, confirmed by reports of a medical board. However, a strong suspicion arose that the pardon would have been the result of a furtive pact of the Kuczynski government with the sector of the Fujimorist bloc that had abstained during the vote for the presidential vacancy and that had thus prevented it from concrete this. The pardon also motivated the resignation of the official congressmen Alberto de Belaunde,
Vicente Zeballos and
Gino Costa; of the Minister of Culture
Salvador del Solar and Minister of Defense Jorge Nieto Montesinos. The Minister of the Interior,
Carlos Basombrío Iglesias, had already resigned. There were also several marches in Lima and throughout the county of the country in protest of the pardon. Alberto Fujimori, who days before the pardon had been admitted to a clinic for complications in his health, was discharged on 4 January 2018 and so could, for the first time, move freely. President Kuczynski, meanwhile, formed a new ministerial cabinet, which he called "the Cabinet of Reconciliation," which according to him, should mark a new stage in the relationship between the Executive and the Legislative.
Mercedes Aráoz held the post of Prime Minister, while eight ministerial changes were made, the most important renewal in what was going on in the government.
Second impeachment and resignation Only days after the first attempt at a presidential vacancy, in January 2018, the Broad Front caucus filed a new vacancy request, alleging Alberto Fujimori's pardon, which allegedly had been negotiated and granted illegally. This did not prosper, given the lack of support from Fuerza Popular, whose votes were necessary to carry out such an initiative. Under that experience, the leftist groups of Broad Front and Nuevo Peru promoted another vacancy motion, concentrating exclusively on the Odebrecht case, arguing that new indications of corruption and conflict of interest had been discovered by PPK when he was Minister of State in the government of
Alejandro Toledo. This time they won the support of Fuerza Popular, as well as other groups like Alianza para el Progreso (whose spokesperson,
César Villanueva, was the main promoter of the initiative), thus gathering the 27 minimum votes necessary to present a multiparty motion before the Congress of the Republic, what was done on 8 March 2018. On 15 March, the admission of this motion was debated in the plenary session of the Congress, the result being 87 votes in favor, 15 votes against and 15 abstentions. The motion received the backing of all the benches, except for Peruvians for Change and non-grouped congressmen, among them, the three former pro-government officials and the Kenji Fujimori bloc. The Board of Spokespersons scheduled the debate on the presidential vacancy request for 22 March. A confidential report from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) on the money movements of Kuczynski's bank accounts was forwarded to the Public Ministry and the Lava Jato Commission of Congress, but inexplicably leaked to public knowledge. This 33-page document revealed that from the companies and consortiums linked Odebrecht transfers had been made to Westfield Capital, the one-person Kuczynski company, for millions. Transfers made to the account of the driver of Kuczynski and that of Gilbert Violeta were also revealed, although it was shown that these were only payments of a labor nature and of basic services. The leak of this report, which is presumed to have been made by the Lava Jato Commission chaired by Rosa Bartra, would have been with the intention of further identifying the credibility of the President of the Republic. On 20 March 2018,
Popular Force showed evidence that the government was buying the support of congressmen to vote against the second presidential vacancy request, a rumor that had already circulated during the first process. It was
a set of videos where the conversations made by the legislators Bienvenido Ramírez and Guillermo Bocángel (from the bench of
Kenji Fujimori) to try to convince Congressman
Moisés Mamani of Puno not to join to support the presidential vacancy, in exchange for works for his represented region. In one of the videos, Kenji Fujimori is seen in a meeting with Mamani, which also includes Bienvenido Ramírez. The latter makes a series of offers to the parliamentarian from Puno to enable him to streamline projects for his region, in exchange for joining his group and supporting Kuczynski. In another video we see Bocángel talking about the administrative control of the Congress, once they access the Board. And in a third video, we see Alberto Borea Odría, PPK's lawyer on the subject of vacancy, explaining to Mamani about aspects of that process and giving him the telephone number of a minister of state. Those involved in the scandal, came out to defend themselves, saying that it was normal practice for congressmen to turn to ministers to ask for works in favor of their regions. Congressman Bienvenido even said that he had only "bragged". But what was questioned was the fact that the government negotiated these works to reorient the vote of a group of congressmen on the issue of the presidential vacancy, which would constitute the criminal figure of influence peddling. A few hours later, Fujimorists gave the final thrust, by broadcasting a set of audios, in which the Minister of Transport and Communications, Bruno Giuffra is heard offering works to Mamani in exchange for his vote to avoid the vacancy. The press highlighted a phrase by Giuffra in which he says: "Comrade, you know what the nut is and what you are going to get out", presumably referring to the benefits Mamani would gain if he voted against the vacancy. Until then, it was expected that the vote to achieve the vacancy would be very tight and that even Kuczynski could again succeed as had happened in the first process. But the Kenjivideos determined that several congressmen who until then had manifested their abstention (among them the three ex- oficialistas) folded in favor of the vacancy, and thus they made it known openly. Faced with the foreseeable scenario that awaited him in the debate scheduled for the Congress on the 22nd, PPK opted to renounce the Presidency of the Republic, sending the respective letter to Congress, and giving a televised message to the Nation, which was transmitted in the afternoon of 21 March. The Board of Spokespersons of the Congress, although rejected the terms of the letter of resignation of Kuczynski, arguing that this did not make any self-criticism and victimized, accepted the same and scheduled for 22 March a debate in Congress to evaluate the resignation. That debate lasted until the next day. Although a section of congressmen on the left argued that the resignation of Kuczynski should not be accepted and that Congress should proceed to vacancy due to moral incapacity, the majority of congressmen considered that it should be accepted, to put an end to the crisis. When the preliminary text of the resolution of the Congress was published, in which it was indicated that the president had "betrayed the fatherland", Kuczynski announced that it would withdraw its letter of resignation if that qualification was maintained. The Board of Spokesmen decided then to omit that expression. The resignation was accepted with 105 votes in favor, 12 against and 3 abstentions. Moments later, the first vice-president
Martín Vizcarra was sworn in as the new constitutional president of the Republic. Soon after, the new government announced that its prime minister would be
César Villanueva, the main promoter for Kuczynski's vacancy.
Vizcarra presidency Anti-corruption initiative Following multiple corruption scandals facing the Peruvian government, on 28 July 2018, President Vizcarra called for
a nationwide referendum to prohibit private funding for political campaigns, ban the reelection of lawmakers and to create a second legislative chamber.
The Washington Post stated that "Vizcarra's decisive response to a graft scandal engulfing the highest tiers of the judiciary ... has some Peruvians talking of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore integrity to public life and revive citizens’ waning faith in democracy". Leftist lawmaker
Marisa Glave, who was once a critic of Vizcarra, praised the move saying he had "connected with the people in a society that is both fed up with corruption but also deeply apolitical. It has put the Fujimoristas in check". On 9 October, the appeal filed by his lawyers was rejected. Next, the judge ordered to locate him and capture him, an end of the sea re-entered in a prison. As a result of the annulment of the pardon, the legislators at the end of Fujimorism, would approve a series of reforms. On 10 October, in the Office of the Prosecutor of Peru, Judge Richard Concepción Carhuancho ordered a preliminary detention of
Keiko Fujimori for 10 days, for the alleged illicit contributions to the
2011 campaign from
Odebrecht. On 17 October, after an appeal, Fujimori was released, along with five other detainees, because no feasible evidences of her responsibility were found. On 15 November 2018,
Alan García went to a meeting with the prosecution of money laundering, as part of an interrogation, carried out by, part of the prosecutor
José Domingo Pérez due to irregularities in the conference payments of the former president, financed with money from Caja 2 of the structured operations division of the
Odebrecht company, before this the prosecutor issued an order to prevent him from leaving the country for 18 months for García, even though at first he said he was at the disposition of the justice, that same night he went to the home of Carlos Alejandro Barros, ambassador of
Uruguay, where he remained until 3 December 2018, when Uruguayan President
Tabaré Vázquez, announced the rejection of Alan García's asylum request, consider that in Peru the three branches of the state functioned freely and without political persecution. On 9 December, Peruvians ultimately accepted three of four of the proposals in the referendum, only rejecting the final proposal of creating a bicameral congress when Vizcarra withdrew his support when the Fujimorista-led congress manipulated the proposals contents which would have removed power from the presidency. On 21 December, the government formalized the formation of the High Level Commission for Political Reform. It was made up of political scientist Fernando Tuesta Soldevilla, as coordinator, and academics Paula Valeria Muñoz Chirinos, Milagros Campos Ramos, Jessica Violeta Bensa Morales and Ricardo Martin Tanaka Dongo. It was installed on 5 January 2019. Based on the report that said Commission gave, the government presented twelve proposals for political reform to Congress (11 April 2019). However, it excluded the issue of bicamerality, as it was recently rejected in the referendum. Among the three projects of constitutional reform was the one that sought the balance between the Executive and Legislative powers with the objective of establishing counterweights between both; the reform that modifies the impediments to be a candidate for any position of popular election, to improve the suitability of the applicants; and the reform that seeks to extend the regional and municipal mandate to five years, to coincide with the general elections. For the Legislative Branch, it was proposed that the election of the congressmen be carried out in the second presidential round; the elimination of the preferential vote and the establishment of parity and alternation in the list of candidates were proposed. On the other hand, for political parties, the aim was to promote internal democracy and citizen participation in the selection of candidates, establishing internal, open, simultaneous and compulsory elections organized by the ONPE. Other reforms related to the registration and cancellation in the registry of political organizations, and the requirements to keep the registration in force, as well as the regulation of the financing of political organizations, to avoid corruption. Another proposal was that the lifting of parliamentary immunity should not be the responsibility of Congress, but of the Supreme Court of Justice. After a 3-day hearing, on 19 April, the Judiciary issued a sentence of 36 months of pre-trial detention for former President
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. However, due to illness, on 27 April he was exchanged for
house arrest. On 29 May, from the Great Hall of the Government Palace, President Vizcarra gave a message to the Nation, in which he announced his decision to raise the issue of trust before Congress in support of political reform. This, after the Constitution Commission, with a Fujimori majority, sent the bill on parliamentary immunity to the archive, and the Permanent Commission, also with a Fujimori majority, filed practically all the complaints weighing on the controversial prosecutor Chávarry. The president, accompanied by members of his ministerial cabinet and regional governors, stated that the issue of trust would be based on the approval, without violating its essence, of six of the bills for political reform, considered the most central: If Congress denied the issue of confidence, it would be the second time that it did (the previous one went to the Zavala cabinet of the government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski), for which, according to the Constitution, faced with two refusals, the President would be empowered to dissolve Congress and call new parliamentary elections within four months. The following day, Prime Minister
Salvador del Solar appeared before Congress to deliver the official letter requesting that the time and date of the plenary session be established, in which he will support the issue of trust. In this document, Del Solar indicated that he would propose that the maximum term for the approval of the six political reforms be at the end of the current legislature (15 June); otherwise, it would consider that Congress denied confidence to the ministerial cabinet. In response to the request, Congress President Daniel Salaverry called the plenary session for 4 June to meet the Executive's request for confidence. The six political reform projects were defined as follows: The Constitution Commission invited jurists
Raúl Ferrero Costa,
Natale Amprimo,
Ernesto Álvarez,
Aníbal Quiroga and
Óscar Urviola to collect their opinions on the Executive's approach and the constitutionality of the approach. On 4 June,
Salvador del Solar appeared in the plenary session of Congress to expose and request the question of trust before the national representation. Previously, a previous question was rejected to evaluate the constitutionality of the trust request. Several voices in Congress considered that imposing a deadline for the approval of constitutional reforms and forcing their essence to be respected was unconstitutional, since reforms of this type were the exclusive responsibility of Congress and the Executive lacked the power to observe them. Due to these criticisms, Del Solar, in his presentation, lightened that part of his demand. He said that Congress was empowered to extend the legislature if necessary, and that it was not obliged to approve the bills to the letter, but could enrich them, although insisting that they should not alter their essence. "This question of trust is not a threat," he concluded. After the presentation of the Prime Minister, the parliamentary debate began, which had to be extended until the following day. Finally, at noon on 5 June 2019, the vote was held. The question was approved with 77 votes in favor, 44 against and 3 abstentions. The members of the left-wing benches (Broad Front and New Peru) and the
Aprista Party voted against, while those of Popular Force did so in a divided manner (33 in favor, 16 against and 2 abstentions). The Constitution commission debated the opinions between 7 June and 20 July. A series of changes were made in the projects, but the most striking was what was committed with the latest opinion, on the lifting of immunity of parliamentarians. The Constitution Commission rejected the Executive's proposal that the Supreme Court be in charge of raising immunity for congressmen, providing that Congress continue to retain that prerogative. The only variant was that it proposed definite terms for Congress to lift immunity once the Judicial Power made the respective request. In addition, it was proposed that the request be given only when there is a final judgment. When the Prime Minister Salvador del Solar was consulted on the opinions approved by the Constitution Commission, he considered that only five respected the spirit of the reforms proposed by the Executive, and that the last one, on parliamentary immunity, meant a setback, since it did not respect the a matter of trust, which had arisen precisely when the Constitution Commission sent the same project to the archive. The six projects were submitted to the plenary session of Congress, were approved between 22 and 25 July, including modifications that further accentuated the distortion of the original projects of the Executive, especially regarding internal democracy and parliamentary immunity.
Daniel Salaverry, elected president of Congress for the 2018–2019 legislature with the support of his
Popular Force colleagues, starred in a series of confrontations with his colleagues, marked by a series of epithets, attempts at censorship and accusations, which led him to distance himself of Popular Force and approach President Vizcarra, who saw him as an ally to curb the dominance of Keiko Fujimori in Congress. This earned him retaliation from his former colleagues. An investigation of the television program Panorama denounced that Salaverry had repeatedly presented false data in his representation week reports (an obligation that congressmen have to visit the provinces they represent, to listen to the demands of their constituents), which included photos from other events. On 28 May 2020, Prime Minister
Vicente Zeballos went to request the vote of confidence with his cabinet. He obtained 89 votes in favor, 35 against, and 4 abstentions. On 1 July, the Union for Peru bench presented a motion to interpellate Zeballos and the Minister of Justice, Fernando Castañeda, stating that urgent responses were required to the problems of public health, economic reactivation and corruption.45 As In response, the prime minister argued that although he respected the autonomy of Congress and both he and his ministers would continue to attend the summons issued by the different commissions, he considered that these motions (six in total, together with those previously presented against the heads of Economy, Health, Education and Development and Social Inclusion) did not add efforts to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic; but on the contrary, they sought to hinder the work of the Executive or to gain prominence.
Dissolution of Congress Demanding reforms in the Constitutional Court organic law, President Vizcarra called for a vote of no confidence on 27 September 2019, stating it was "clear the democracy of our nation is at risk". Vizcarra sought to reform the Constitutional Court nomination process and Congress' approval or disapproval of his proposal was seen "as a sign of confidence in his administration". Many of the Constitutional Court nominees selected by Congress were alleged to be involved in corruption. Hours later, the Congress approved the confidence motion. Notwithstanding the affirmative vote, Vizcarra stated that the appointment of a new member of the Constitutional Court constituted a
de facto vote of no confidence. He said that it was the second act of no-confidence in his government, granting him the authority to dissolve Congress. These actions by Congress, as well as the months of slow progress towards anti-corruption reforms, pushed Vizcarra to dissolve the legislative body on 30 September, with Vizcarra stating "Peruvian people, we have done all we could." During the evening of 1 October 2019, Mercedes Aráoz, whom Congress had declared interim president, resigned from office. Aráoz resigned, hoping that the move would promote the new general elections proposed by Vizcarra and postponed by Congress. At the time, no governmental institution or foreign government recognized Aráoz as president.
First impeachment As Peru's economy declined due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in Peru, President Vizcarra faced increased political pressure from the newly inaugurated congress presided by
Manuel Merino, with the majority of the legislative body being controlled by those opposing Vizcarra. Finally on 5 July 2020, Vizcarra proposed a referendum to be held during the
2021 Peruvian general election to remove
parliamentary immunity, though congress quickly responded by assembling that same night to pass their own immunity bill that contained proposals to remove immunity from the president, constitutional court and the human rights ombudsman while also strengthening some instances of parliamentary immunity. Since early 2020, investigations began surrounding a contract for a little-known singer by the name of Richard Cisneros to perform speeches for the Ministry of Culture. On 10 September 2020, Alarcon, who faced possible
parliamentary immunity revocation related to alleged acts of corruption, released audio recordings purporting that Vizcarra acted with "
moral incapacity". The recordings allegedly contain audio of Vizcarra instructing his staff to say that he met with Cisneros only on a limited number of occasions and audio of Cisneros saying that he influenced Vizcarra's rise to office and decision to dissolve congress.
Minister of Defense Jorge Chávez confirmed that Merino had tried to establish support with the Peruvian military. Following the release of these reports, support for impeaching Vizcarra decreased among members of congress. On 14 September, President Vizcarra filed a lawsuit in the
Constitutional Court of Peru to block the 18 September impeachment vote, stating to during a press conference, "Why has the president of Congress communicated with top military officials, and even planned pseudo-cabinets who would take over? That is conspiracy, gentlemen."
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mario Lopez also released a statement that Vizcarra's government had prepared to call upon the
Organization of American States'
Inter-American Democratic Charter if Vizcarra were to be impeached, with the charter stating "when the government of a member state considers that its democratic political institutional process or its legitimate exercise of power is at risk, it may request assistance from the Secretary General or the Permanent Council for the strengthening and preservation of its democratic system". On 18 September, Vizcarra gave a speech for twenty minutes after appearing before congress. Following ten hours of deliberation, 32 members of congress supported the motion to remove Vizcarra from the office of the presidency, 78 voted against his removal and 15 abstained from voting, with 87 votes of 130 being required for his removal. President of Congress Manuel Merino was criticized by critics regarding how he hastily pushed for impeachment proceedings against Vizcarra.