Lima, Mar 23 (EFE) – Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, threatened today to withdraw his resignation and subject himself to impeachment, if Congress does not accept the terms of his letter of resignation.
“The proposed Legislative Resolution of the Congress that attempts to present a resignation as a vacancy is unacceptable. If that is the case, I will withdraw my letter and submit to the regular vacancy procedure where I will exercise my right to legal defense,” said the president.
Kuczynski was unhappy with a draft of the Congressional resolution that would accept his resignation, but which including very damning accusations against his presidency and his government; among other things he is called “traitor to the mother country.”
Hours earlier, the pro-government party Peruanos Por el Kambio (PPK) threatened to boycott the swearing in of the new president, which must be undertaken today by Vice President Martín Vizcarra, if Congress insisted on maintaining those terms in its resolution.
Juan Sheput, one of the legislators closest to the president warned this morning, before Congressional debate is resumed, that there will be no “transfer of power” if the legislative resolution lacks respect for the president. Congress must accept the resignation of PPK in order for Vizcarra to assume the presidency.
“If the legislative resolution that ‘accepts’ the resignation of PPK contains falsehoods, insults, or unacceptable terms, then it will not be accepted by our party, and there may be no transfer of power. And it will be the fault of an irresponsible sector of Congress,” he said.
Sheput denounced in several interviews, that this phrase was included under pressure from the left-wing parties, in order to alienate his party, and pointed out that, if the other Congressmen do not modify the text, his party will use an unspecified, “Constitutional mechanism” that he did not specifically mention.
On Thursday Congress began the debate over the resignation of Kuczynski while awaiting the arrival in Lima of the first vice president, Martin Vizcarra, so that the transfer of power today can put an end to the government crisis.
The head of state presented his letter of resignation on Wednesday, pressured by Congress, in the face of video and audio evidence, which showed at least one party official and one minister attempting to buy the support an opposition legislator to prevent PPK’s impeachment.
The majority of the parties in Congress said they accepted Kuczynski’s resignation, although they were displeased that he failed to accept responsibility for the allegations against him.
As it is, the left indicated that if the resignation was to be accepted, “it would be on the terms of a vacancy.”
The constitutionalist Raul Ferrero called on “the good sense of Congress to rectify the letter” and said that lawmakers should not use qualifiers in accepting the resignation of Kuczynski, mcuh less deem him to be a “traitor to the fatherland”, since it implies the accusation of a criminal offense.
“In the Congress there are very qualified people. What we are currently seeing is a mistaken byproduct of the confusion that exists at this moment, but it is something unacceptable, the country is not going to endorse such a thing,” he emphasized, before saying that the Peruvian people want “to return to tranquility and go through a normal transition process.”