President of Peru returns by car from Ecuador to avoid impeachment

Peru’s President Pedro Castillo had to rush back to the country from Ecuador by car to avoid being impeached by Congress, after bad weather prevented him from returning by plane.

In a country where presidents are frequently removed, Castillo risked breaking the Constitution if he did not return to Peru before midnight on Friday (05:00 GMT on Saturday).

At that time, the permission granted by Parliament to the leftist president expired for his visit to his neighbor in Ecuador, where he headed a binational cabinet with his counterpart Guillermo Lasso in the city of Loja, 264 km by road from the Peruvian border.

Exceeding the deadline would have given the opponents who control the Legislature a pretext to proceed to remove Castillo, since the Peruvian Magna Carta does not contemplate exceptions for meteorological causes.

Since the presidential plane was unable to take off due to bad weather, Castillo had to drive five hours to reach the Peruvian border on time.

One hour before the term expired, Castillo arrived at the Tumbes border post, according to local media, which freed him from facing a new “presidential vacancy” motion (removal), the third in his nine months in power.

“Vacancy” motions have become customary in Peru and caused the fall of presidents Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (right) in 2018 and Martín Vízcarra (center) in 2020, which keeps the country mired in instability.

Since December 2017, Peruvian lawmakers have submitted six vacancy motions to Congress, two of them against Castillo.