The strike will be this Thursday. The protests continue throughout Peru and plan to reach the capital this week. There are already 50 dead.
The General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP), the main Peruvian trade union organization, convened a national strike against the government for this Thursday, January 19, to demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte and the unicameral Legislative.
The measure was announced this Monday, at a time when thousands of protesters march from different cities to Lima to support these demands that include the call for new elections to renew both powers in the country.
At the same time, important sectors of the Pan-American highway in the north of the country were blocked by protesters.
The tension in the country has not stopped growing since the controversial former president Pedro Castillo carried out a coup attempt on December 7 with the announcement of the closure of Congress, the declaration of a state of emergency and the start of a government by decree, in addition to the arrest of the country’s attorney general.
Boluarte, then vice president and co-religionist with Castillo in the left-wing communist party Peru Libre – an organization that both left after coming to power – prevented the maneuver. The Armed Forces and the police also opposed it.
The then president, who was also facing a cluster of corruption allegations, was isolated and ended up immediately ousted and arrested after an attempt to seek asylum in the Mexican embassy in the Peruvian capital failed.
Supporters of the former president denounced the episode, however, as a blow against Castillo, a teacher unionist from the interior of the country, with no political experience, with a confused ideology and who became president in July 2021 without having a plan of government.
During his checkered tenure of just over a year, Castillo constantly took over from his cabinet in the midst of stiff opposition from the Legislature dominated by right-wing forces and with serious allegations of corruption among parliamentarians.
The protests that demand the resignation of Boluarte, the call for elections and a constituent convention that draws up a new Magna Carta have had a bloody balance. There are at least fifty dead in clashes with the police, hundreds injured and arrested.
Thursday’s strike
It is with this argument of the victims in the protests that the powerful left-oriented trade union center called on “the working class and the Peruvian people to actively participate in the great national, civic process and popular strike of January 19, 2023.” . It adds that the motto of the strike is the demand for “the resignation of Dina Boluarte and the leaders of Parliament.”
According to the latest survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (Iep), published over the weekend, 71% of those interviewed consider the Boluarte government negative and 88% disapprove of Parliament’s conduct.
The strike was announced when the social movements that until now have encouraged the protests in the south of the country decided move tens of thousands of people to Lima for the second edition of the so-called “de Los Cuatro Suyos” march. The protesters also demand the release of Castillo, whose family went into exile in Mexico.
The march to Lima takes place in defiance of the state of emergency decreed by the government this weekend in various areas of southern Peru. The Ombudsman’s Office reported this Sunday that a man died in a car accident linked to the protests, bringing the death toll due to the crisis to 50.
Boluarte, faced with the pressure against her, announced the advancement of the elections to April of next year, a decision that was made in agreement with Parliament. But due to the seriousness of the situation, she has given signs that this call could be anticipated.
According to analysts, among other scenarios, an early election could benefit the right-wing forces that harassed Castillo.
Source: Agencies