Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra Faces Impeachment Trial

Vizcarra has been accused of corruption and bribery amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. Source

On September 11, the Congress of Peru voted 65-36 in favor of going forwards with the impeachment trial of Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra. The president has been charged with misusing public funds for paying singer Richard Cisneros, also known as Richard Swing, 175,400 soles ($49,500) to give pro-government motivational speeches during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This is not the first time a Peruvian president has faced allegations of corruption. Vizcarra’s past four predecessors have either been charged with or been investigated for some form of corruption. Vizcarra himself came to power in 2018 when his predecessor, former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski Godard, resigned amid a corruption scandal.

Vizcarra had been threatened with impeachment prior to the current developments. Vizcarra faced calls for his removal from office on the grounds of incapacity in September of 2019, but he managed to quell them by dissolving Congress.

Recent calls for impeachment surfaced on September 10. Opposition congressman Edgar Alarcon presented three audio recordings of Vizcarra to Congress in which Vizcarra instructed his aides to cover up meetings with Cisneros. Vizcarra, however, claims these recordings have been manipulated.

Although Vizcarra acknowledges that he knows Cisneros, he attests that these recordings constitute a larger plot created to destabilize the Peruvian government. Vizcarra says, “I am not going to resign, I have a commitment to Peru and I will fulfil it until the last day of my mandate.” 

In order to be removed, 87 of the 130 members of Congress will need to vote in favor of Vizcarra’s impeachment; currently, six out of nine parties in Congress, which constitutes 95 members, are in favor of his removal. If Vizcarra is removed from office, he is likely to be replaced by right-leaning businessman Manuel Merino, the current president of Congress. 

This impeachment crisis could prove detrimental to Peru’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the government produced a rapid response to the pandemic. However, Peru’s poor healthcare system and rampant inequality have since undermined the country’s response, leading to more than 30,000 deaths in Peru since the beginning of the pandemic.