On Friday night, Peru’s Congress shelved a bill by President Dina Boluarte to bring elections forward to 2023, leaving open a huge demand from protesters that have agitated the country in recent weeks.
Boluarte introduced the bill to bring elections forward to October 2023 on Wednesday in a bid to calm deadly protests. A repeatedly fractured Congress has failed to agree on its own bill after weeks of political strife.
A congressional committee considered the president’s bill on Friday afternoon, but shelved it on a technicality before there was even a debate. It cannot be re-evaluated until July, when a new legislative year begins.
New early elections have been a key demand from protesters since leftist former president Pedro Castillo was ousted and jailed in December after illegally trying to dissolve Congress.
Eight weeks of anti-government protests have resulted in 48 people killed in clashes between protesters and security forces, mostly in copper-rich southern Peru.
Congress has already agreed to move forward to 2024 elections originally scheduled for 2026, but that has not stopped the protests.
(Reporting by Alexander Villegas)
Source: CNN Brasil
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