This past Wednesday, Pedro Castillo, Peru’s socialist President, was reportedly taken into custody after being impeached and kicked from office for attempting to stage a coup in a bid to stay in power.
Throughout his first 16 months in office, Castillo has been slammed with a total of six full-scale criminal investigations and three attempts to get him impeached, including the final one that resulted in his removal from officer this week, as reported by The New York Times.
Prosecutors hurled accusations at Castillo of being the head of a crime syndicate that made a profit off securing government contracts and obstructed justice, explained the report. Castillo has stated that such allegations are entirely false.
Castillo attempted to avoid his impeachment by saying that he was officially dissolving Congress and creating a new emergency government.
This bid was marked by his inner circle as “an attempted coup to cling to power,” and it was instantly rejected as unconstitutional by the country’s high courts. Both the military and police forces of the country stated that they would not stand in support of him.
“Any act contrary to the established constitutional order represents an infraction to the Constitution and will lead to the non-acceptance by the Armed Forces and the Police,” expressed the Joint Command of the Armed Forces via a release. “The citizenship is called to remain calm and trust in the state institutions legally established.”
By the end of the same day of his attempted coup, Dina Boluarte, his vice president, had been officially sworn in as the new president, as Castillo was taken into custody.
“I reject Pedro Castillo’s decision to break the constitutional order by closing the Congress,” stated Boluarte. “This is a coup d’etat that deepens the political and institutional crisis, and Peruvian society will have to overcome the crisis with a strict attachment to the law.”
Previously working as a farmer, teacher, and head of a union, Castillo stepped up to speak to the public just scant hours prior to the impeachment vote taking place. He stated that he would take control and rule the country by his decree as brand new legislative elections are created.
“We have taken the decision to establish a government of exception, to reestablish the rule of law and democracy to which effect the following measures are dictated: to dissolve Congress temporarily, to install a government of exceptional emergency, to call to the shortest term possible to elections for a new Congress with the ability to draft a new Constitution,” explained Castillo.
Additionally, he created an immediate curfew that went into effect nationwide that was slated to last from 10 p.m. on Wednesday to 4 a.m. Thursday.
His resignation announcement on Wednesday spurned a large number of officials to also depart the nation’s government.
