Former Minister of Justice spoke about the political crisis in the country and the actions taken by the Executive and Congress in relation to the protests against the Government of Dina Boluarte. “That troglodyte, retrograde discourse, of people who want impunity for acts that imply responsibility, is immoral,” she pointed out.
Marisol Perez Telloformer congressman and former Minister of Justice, is –along with several people– promoting a political platform that brings together political parties and regional movementsthinking about what could be the next general election. In this interview, he answers about the always convulsed conjuncture.
— Do you see likely that there will be elections this year?
— It is unlikely, I hope they will be at the beginning of the next one. I don’t see any other way out. The lack of legitimacy of the Executive and Legislative makes everything untenable.
— You were a congressman, is it so difficult to realize that you have to step aside?
— Real politics is service and very few in this Congress are aware that they are at the service of others.. I think they feel above others and that distorts their true role. What you see is a level of mediocrity in terms of management, awareness of the situation.
— When you had to be a congressman in the period 2011-2016, do you remember so many benefits?
— No. And there is not much awareness that this would have to go hand in hand with a lot of work. If you say that, yes, you have four tickets because they correspond to you, people say: how come they correspond to you? What are you doing? Are you going to work, to see your boyfriend, on vacation? The feeling is that it is a privilege, not a work tool. The feeling of abuse, of arrogance, of lack of awareness of the lives that have been lost, of lack of interest in investigating the use of force, makes Congress increasingly discredited as an institution and the isolated voices that there, they can no longer be heard, they already feel false. If he fujimorismo and app they tell you that they are going to support the early elections but that is not consistent with the number of votes they haveEither the leader is not, or they are all liars.
— Or they’re just walking us.
— Or they want to confuse us. They underestimate us as a society. And the country is exhausted.
— It is clear that the main objection of the congressmen to leave is the economic factor. Should they be paid compensation to accept the elections?
— Sometimes a bad arrangement is better than a good judgement. If with that we get rid of this, that they be paid the compensation until 2026, but we don’t have to see them anymore. The issue is that what this will do is highlight what we already know: that this is a matter of numbers. AND It’s a shame because there are good people among those 130.
– I do not doubt it. Politics is also a job.
– Exact. And those good people have the opportunity to campaign. We should listen between now and March to those who are going to vote for the early elections. we need to 66 people…
— 67 votes were obtained for the issue of the elections to be seen again, but Jorge Montoya presented a reconsideration.
– Exact. What should be done at this time is to demand that those 67 stand by their decision and vote the same. With those 67 votes, Peru has a future.
— Do you think that if these 67 are ratified, then 87 votes will be reached for a reform in Congress, or will we have to go to a referendum?
— I do not aspire to reach 87 votes. I aspire that with those same 67 we go to a referendum because I do not want us to continue depending on the Congress. If we depend on Congress, we would have to wait until August (for a second vote) and between April, May and June anything can occur to them. Instead, with a referendum you legitimize the decision, you take pressure off this idea that there is no way out, you send a message to boluarte and Congress and you put on the table the issue of some of the reforms that must be made.
— You have a political career linked to the defense of human rights. How should one proceed to clarify the deaths?
– The first that we must answer to Peru is what happened, in each case. It is necessary to study in each case if the necessary force was used or not. There are more than reasonable indications that in more than one case it was an extrajudicial execution. The prosecutor is going to investigate, but it is going to take five years, 10 years. Cabitos took more than 34 years. We don’t have that time. There should be a political response from Congress and an independent commission, like the one in the bagua case.
— But I don’t think that will happen either in this government or in this Congress.
— It is a mistake, they delegitimize themselves more. If it doesn’t happen, you increase a pain gap in a country where impunity has been the rule. You can’t allow that. That Congress, on top of that, wants to denounce the contentious jurisdiction of the Court and that amnesty laws are proposed when that has been settled years ago in international law is outrageous. These people don’t understand that a line has already been crossed. That troglodyte, retrograde discourse of People who want impunity for acts that involve responsibility are immoral. We must defend what humanity has achieved in terms of respect and guarantee of human rights. The main defenders of human rights in the world are the policemen and the armed forces, the good guys.
— Are we facing an authoritarian government?
— This is a government today authoritarian that never understood itself as a transition and that intends to govern on the basis of denying reality. Boluarte was never aware of the moral crisis into which the Government of which she had been vice president and of the social crisis generated even by the speeches, for example, in those decentralized councils. What she did was stick her finger into a real wound. There is a problem of racism, discrimination, inequality of opportunities. There are claims at the bottom of these protests that are absolutely legitimate. I do not endorse the way, but I understand that many of these places have only achieved the road or the post with deaths in between. Boluarte would have to put himself above that, he would have to tell Congress that he is waiting for them until April to get the votes for the elections…
— And that otherwise he will resign?
– That’s how it is. I would expect a message from her in Congress saying that a commission of independent experts will be formed to investigate the use of force.. And that, if they do not agree to advance the elections until April, he will present his resignation from office.
