The Congress of Peru prevents President Castillo from going to Petro’s inauguration

After the resignation this week of Aníbal Torres, Pedro Castillo yesterday appointed Roberto Sánchez as his fifth prime minister since he assumed power, with which he intends to put an end to the permanent political crisis suffered by his Government. Torres’s resignation has occurred in the midst of five complaints of corruption opened by the Prosecutor’s Office against the Peruvian head of state.

Robert Sanchez He has been, until relieving Torres, responsible for the Commerce and Tourism portfolio, a position he assumed on July 29, 2021, with the nascent Government of Pedro Castillo. Psychologist and congressman of the Republic for the period 2021-2026, he is a member of the left-wing party Together for Peru and is a fervent defender of the Peruvian president in the media.

More changes

Between the new cabinet changes, forced by the departure of Torres, the president has appointed Kurt Burneo, former Vice Minister of Economy and former director of the Central Reserve Bank, as Minister of Economy and Finance. Burneo studied Economics at the Catholic University of Peru and enjoys great international prestige.

In a year of Government, in which up to four prime ministers have passed through the Cabinet –Guido Bellido, Mirtha Vásquez, Héctor Valer and Aníbal Torres–, the National Prosecutor’s Office, in an unprecedented way, authorized the investigation of a president in the exercise of their functions. Castillo is in the spotlight for five criminal proceedings involving his intimate circle, such as his wife, Lilia Paredes; his sister-in-law, Yenifer Paredes, his nephew, Fray Castillo; the former secretary of the Government Palace, Bruno Pacheco, and the former Minister of Transport and Communications, Juan Silva.

Among the open cases, the president is being investigated for allegedly directing a criminal organization where he granted works in exchange for privileges in the Tarata III Bridge, payments for promotions in the Armed Forces and changes in contracts in the state oil company Petroperú SA

No permission to go out

With the Peruvian president immersed in a sea of ​​investigations, Congress decided yesterday not to give him permission to leave the country and thus attend the inauguration of the new president of Colombia. A decision that Castillo regretted on social networks, in which he announced that the Vice President and Minister of Development of Social Inclusion, Dina Boluarte, would attend in his place.

“From the Executive we have always respected the independence of the powers of the State. I regret that, as unusual and arrogant, Congress prevents me from attending an international protocol act. This fact dents the democratic ties with the sister Republic of Colombia », the president wrote on his Twitter account.

The reactions Given the impossibility of Castillo to travel to Bogotá, they did not wait. Antonia Arrejuola, Chilean Foreign Minister, lamented that Castillo “must be absent from Gustavo Petro’s change of command. There are few opportunities to get together to discuss the challenges we face as a region.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard expressed himself in the same vein: “I regret that President Pedro Castillo has not been authorized to attend the inauguration in Colombia, high-level meetings will be held there to deal with inflation-recession , the food crisis and new health risks. We will miss Peru.

peter castle yesterday went to the Prosecutor’s Office to answer for the allegations of his corruption against him where he announced that as part of his constitutional right he will not answer to the Attorney General because he “knows he is innocent.” Next week he will have to go to the Prosecutor’s Office for cases of alleged corruption involving his intimate environment.