Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/LIMA: Congress of Peru has shelved President Dina Boluarte’s bill to bring elections forward to 2023, leaving the primary demand of demonstrators whose protests have rocked Peru up in the air in recent weeks.
Boluarte unveiled the bill to bring elections forward to October on Wednesday in a bid to calm the protests. After weeks of political crisis, the fractured Congress repeatedly disagreed on its own bill.
The congressional commission took up the President’s bill on Friday afternoon but shelved it on the technicality before it even reached debate. It can only be taken up again in July when a new legislative year starts.
Peru Congress
Rapidly the new elections have been the main demands of protesters since former left-wing President Pedro was ousted and jailed in December 2022 after attempting to dissolve Congress illegally.
Eight weeks of anti-government protests resulted in 48 citizens killed in clashes between security forces and demonstrators, mainly in Peru’s copper-rich south.
Congress had already agreed to bring forward new elections scheduled for 2026 to 2024, but that did not halt the protests.
One bill to call new elections this year by the right-wing Popular Force party failed on Wednesday. After days of closed-door negotiations, they have yet to yield a consensus.
