By Natalia Lizama Sernaqué and César Zorrilla Flores
The lobbyist Karelim López, in process to take advantage of effective collaboration, revealed to the Prosecutor’s Office the names of the six congressmen from the Popular Action caucus who were part of the group that obeyed “everything that” President Pedro Castillo says. These are, according to the accusation cited by El Comercio, Raúl Doroteo (Ica), Juan Carlos Mori (Loreto), Jorge Flores (Puno), Darwin Espinoza (Áncash), Ilich López (Junín) and Elvis Vergara (Ucayali).
Despite the fact that they deny belonging to the alleged construction bidding mafia of the Ministry of Transportation, as López indicates, their votes in Congress, in cases that affect government authorities, changed over the months.
Last year, ‘Los Niños’, as Castillo called them, according to the lobbyist, voted against the vacancy of the president and against the interpellation motions of the former Ministers of Education, Carlos Gallardo and Juan Silva, who headed the MTC . Doroteo, Flores, Espinoza, López and Vergara were the ones who were in charge of defending Silva’s position with his votes, Mori did not appear in the vote despite having attended the Plenary.
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So far in 2022 and with the scandal uncovered, the opposite happened. In the interpellations of the Minister of Health and Justice and the second vacancy motion of the president, they voted in favor of all the processes.
Sanctions and silence
Peru21 managed to communicate with Congressman Darwin Espinoza, who announced that they will file (along with Mori, Vergara and Doroteo) a criminal complaint against Karelim López. The parliamentarian denies and says that he does not understand the reasons why López mentions them in his statements.
The other five mentioned did not respond to our calls. “They will think that it is repetitive; not all of them are expressive”, Espinoza justified them.
Karol Paredes, from the same caucus, said that the AP will wait for the investigations to be completed before making a statement, but that if the complaints are verified, they will be sanctioned.
Data
- Darwin Espinoza justified his repeated votes in favor of the Government as the product of an agreement adopted by the Popular Action bloc.
- “I am very surprised that a declaration of the 10th again comes out and a day before seeing the vacancy,” he said.
