President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski handed in his resignation to Congress today, following the release of videos that added to the allegations of corruption just 24 hours before he was due to face a new impeachment process in Congress.
Congress accepted his resignation within hours. Vice President Martin Vizcarra, who also serves as ambassador to Canada, announced he is returning to Lima on Thursday night from Ottawa to assume the presidency.
Kuczynski’s resignation was viewed widely as the only viable option, given the constant barrage of allegations and attacks against him and his ministers that was undermining his government’s effectiveness.
The impeachment of the President that Congress had scheduled for Thursday appeared to be losing momentum, according to leading political analysts. Several predicted that the opposition led by Keiko Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular (FP) with Apra and the two left-wing parties would be unable to muster the 87 votes required to oust Kuczynski, in spite of extreme pressure to vote along party lines.
“Voting with your conscience is applied in specific circumstances and I personally don’t think it applies in this case,” said Rosa Bartra of Fuerza Popular on Tuesday. She chairs the congressional committee investigating the corruption allegations.
But that was before Fuerza Popular released videos later in the day, alleging to show vote-buying attempts by lawmakers who were not members of Kuczynski’s party but were known to be against his impeachment. Within hours the opposition was able to count 102 votes in their favor, including lawmakers in Kuczynski’s own party. The videos, which the Executive said had been misleadingly edited, also prompted calls on social media for a new protest march, which was to be held Thursday.
In a televised address to the nation at 2:30 pm today to announce his resignation, Kuczynski categorically rejected any wrongdoing either by him or his cabinet members.
“In the 19 months of my government, I have given the best of myself …. against constant obstacles and political opposition… from the very first day of my administration,” the President said, adding that the constant calls to ministers to defend their policies in full congressional sessions, the censure of several ministers and of a complete cabinet had led the situation to become ungovernable.
“I’ve worked for almost 60 years of my life with total transparency,” Kuczynski said, adding that he had lifted his banking secrecy to prove all allegations were wrong. He also accused the congressional commission in charge of the Odebrecht bribery and campaign funding investigations of leaking selected pieces of this information to misinform the public, affecting not only his privacy but that of his personal staff.
Odebrecht, the huge Brazilian construction firm now mired in scandal across the continent, was at the heart of the first impeachment attempt in December against Kuczynski. He narrowly escaped that ouster when Keiko Fujimori’s brother, Congressman Kenji Fujimori, led nine other lawmakers to break with their party and vote against the impeachment.
It quickly became apparent that surprise support was a quid pro quo in exchange for a presidential pardon and release from prison for their father, disgraced ex-President Alberto Fujimori.
That revelation cost Kuczynski what little support he had remaining from Peru’s leftist political parties.
Kenji Fujimori then took center stage again on Tuesday in the videos released by his sister’s party. In the clearly edited footage, Kenji Fujimori, who formally quit the Fuerza Popular earlier this month, is seen meeting with other lawmakers from that party in a conference room. They appear to be discussing supporting Kuczynski in exchange for millions of dollars worth of public works projects in their congressional districts.
The videos “confirm the kind of political class we have,” said José Ugaz, former head of Transparency International. “They should all go.” Ugaz was special prosecutor for the Fujimori-Montesinos case in 2000 when President Alberto Fujimori fled to Japan and faxed in his resignation.
Kuczynski emphasized Wednesday there is no proof to the allegations, which stem from investigations by the congressional commission, known as Lava Jato, and by the district attorney’s office looking into bribery by Odebrecht. The commission has long been questioned for an apparent lack of impartiality. It has unrelentingly insisted on questioning Kuczynski while failing to focus more seriously on Keiko Fujimori and former President Alan Garcia, who also were implicated in Odebrecht bribary scandals.
The allegations of wrongdoing by Kuczynski are related to his Westfield Capital firm’s consultancy to Odebrecht for specific projects in Peru while he was Finance minister in Alejandro Toledo’s administration. Kuczynski’s defense is that there was a Chinese wall between his firm and First Capital, a Chilean-based company that operated Westfield while he was working in the government.
But the opposition does not buy that, nor does the general public. Perhaps not surprising since many of the politicians leading the allegations are under their own clouds of suspicion. Keiko Fujimori and her campaign finance manager Jaime Yoshiyama are under investigation by the district attorney’s office for money laundering, while several of the FP members in Congress are facing or have faced the congressional ethics committee for lying in their resumés or alleged plagiarism.
Martin Vizcarra, a former regional governor of Tacna on the border with Chile, should be sworn in by the weekend. The Fuerza Popular party has said it would be able to work much more easily with Vizcarra than with Kuczynski. However, only a year ago, in May 2017, Fuerza Popular was moving to impeach Vizcarra for alleged corruption on the addenda attched to the contract to develop the controversial Chinchero airport in Cusco.
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