Congress of Peru postpones voting for the third time and keeps advance elections on hold | International

The session to discuss an advance election was postponed for the third time and rescheduled for this Wednesday morning.

The Congress of Peru postponed for the third time the debate and vote on a bill to bring forward to October of this year the general elections, which includes presidential and legislative elections, following establishing that the parliamentary session will be held this Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. local time (1:00 p.m. in Chile).

“In order to find consensus among the national representation and at the request of the president of the Constitution Commission, the plenary session called to approve the early elections is rescheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday at 11:00 a.m.,” he wrote in his official account. from Twitter the President of the Congress, José Williams.

The debate and vote on this legislative initiative, considered crucial in the context of protests in the country, were initially scheduled for this Monday followingnoon, but later it was postponed to Tuesday morning, then to the same day in the followingnoon and finally for Wednesday.

In order to find consensus among the national representation and at the request of the president of the Constitution Commission, the plenary session called to approve the early elections is rescheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday at 11:00 a.m.

—Jose Williams Zapata (@jwilliamszapata) January 31, 2023

The decision of the head of Parliament, at the request of the Constitution Commission chaired by the Fujimorista Hernando Guerra Garcia, It was known when the parliamentary session was scheduled to start to debate the electoral advance.

Hours earlier, Guerra García met with the Congressmen Lady Camones and Alejandro Cavero, of the right-wing parties Alliance for Progress and Avanza País, respectively, with the Peruvian Prime Minister, Alberto Otárola, at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, in the center of Lima.

“We are still in talks and we are also waiting for one more component that is the Executive and from there I hope we can reach a good agreement,” said the legislator regarding the bill that proposes to address one of the main demands of the protests anti-government protests in which 65 people have died.

The legislative proposal on the electoral advance for October 2023 was rejected last Friday by the plenary session of the Peruvian Parliament, but this Monday the Legislature approved to reconsider the vote.

After the approval of the reconsideration, Guerra García requested an intermediate room to meet separately with each of the political parties to present a text that can generate greater consensus.

Until now, among the groups that have expressed the greatest rejection of the proposal is the ultra-conservative Renovación Popular and the centrist Acción Popular, as well as Perú Libre, the self-styled Marxist party that in 2021 brought to power the Former President Pedro Castillo.

The project that is presented must be debated by the full parliament and its eventual approval requires the support of 87 of the 130 congressmen that make up the Peruvian chamber.

If approved, the opinion must be submitted to a vote once more in the next legislature, as it is a constitutional reform.

The country’s president, Dina Boluarte, announced on Sunday that if Congress does not approve the advancement of general elections, it will immediately send two projects so that the elections can be held anyway this year and for the total reform of the 1993 Constitution by the next legislature.