Dina Boluarte is president twice: of Peru and of Club Apurímac

On December 7, 2022, Dina Boluarte she became president but she already knew what it was like to be called president. On that date, the Head of State presided over the Apurímac Departmental Club, a private association for which, in 2021, she asked the Tax Administration Service (SAT) of the Municipality of Lima, when she was Minister of Development and Social Inclusion, to forgive a debt of almost 40 thousand soles of property tax.

According to the game No. 03001776 registered in the Superintendency of Public Records (Sunarp), to which this newspaper accessed, Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra will still be president of the club until next February 15, 2024. Her mandate began in 2019 and she processed its extension, with the endorsement of the board of directors, until that date.

LOOK: Dina Boluarte excused herself from declaring three times to the Prosecutor for deaths in protests

For this fact, that is, to keep the position private, and in turn to carry out administrative procedures on her behalf, Boluarte was denounced, in 2022, before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations (SAC) for allegedly infringing article 126 of the Magna Carta, which prohibits a Minister of State from being a member of a private association, much less from taking steps on its behalf.

The complaint against Boluarte asked that she be disqualified from public service for 10 years, but 13 congressmen from eight benches, allied to the government of Pedro Castillo, saved her.

CANNOT HAVE THE CHARGE

Constitutionalists Erick Urbina and Carlos Hakansson assured Peru21 that article 126 of the Magna Carta prohibits her “by analogy” and “by extension” from being president of Peru and in turn from being the owner of the Apurímac Club.

What happens is that although it does not say verbatim that the president cannot have a position in a private entity, it is tacitly understood.

“If it is that article 126 of the Constitution prohibits a minister from exercising any position of direction or management in a private entity, all the more so it requires the President of the Republic; this is by analogy,” Urbina explained.

“By extension, if the direct collaborators of the president, who are the ministers, have incompatibilities, even more so who presides over the nation and embodies the State,” Hakansson said.

Urbina and Hakansson agreed that although article 117 protects her because she cannot be accused for that reason, they considered that this fact could be used by her opponents to present a presidential vacancy motion.

“There is the option of vacancy due to moral incapacity that could be taken into account by those congressmen who consider that she is misusing her position as president and benefiting a departmental club,” said Urbina.

THEY TOSSED LIFE GUARDS

Last December 5, two days before Boluarte was sworn in as president of Peru, her complaint was debated in the Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations.

The report prepared by Congressman Edgard Reymundo (JPP), an ally of Peru Libre, a group with which Boluarte was elected vice president, recommended that her case be archived because it found no evidence of a constitutional violation.

GENEROUS WITH HER CLUB

Boluarte’s defense in the Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations and before the media was that she did not commit a constitutional infraction because since July 26, 2021 she was not president of the Apurímac Club since she had requested a license.

This argument was refuted by the constitutionalists Alejandro Rospigliosi, Erick Urbina and Aníbal Quiroga, who agreed that requesting a license “was not the same as not having the position” because they would have had to resign.

But that is not all. On September 20, 2021, when she was the head of Midis and in charge of the presidential office -because Castillo was in Mexico- she went to the Jorge Luis Gonzales Loli notary to sign a deed to modify the Club Apurímac statute so that she and the board of directors can remain in their positions until February 2024. For this reason, she holds that position until today.

According to the record, she appeared with a loan at said club for an amount of S/9,739.

And, three months later, on December 30, 2021, he sent a letter to the SAT of the Municipality of Lima to forgive Club Apurímac a debt of S/39,941. But, they did not grant it because until now it appears with that pending payment, he verified Peru21.

Where he did have a successful management was by getting the commune to grant him the operating license to his club’s restaurant-bar. That happened in May 2022.

KEEP IN MIND

-The Presidential Office informed Peru 21 that the SAC investigated this issue for a year “and finding no irregularities, it archived it.”

-The 13 congressmen who shielded it are: Reymundo (JPP), Balcázar (PB), Montalvo (PL), Cruz Mamani (PL), Palacios (PL), Soto (AP), Aragón (AP), Arriola (AP), Medina Hermosilla (BM), Quiroz (BM), Echeverría (PD), Paredes (IyD) and Saavedra (SP).

-On March 7, the president has announced that she will attend the Prosecutor’s Office in person to testify about the deaths in the violent protests.

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