New 'Take of Lima' to revive protests in Peru

Peru broke on Wednesday the five months of dead calm after the political and social outbreak that rocked the Andean country due to the failed coup attempt by former President Pedro Castillo. A new Takeover of Lima, the third, called by unions, social organizations, unions and different political leaders despite the failure of the previous one, with which it is intended to lash out at President Dina Boluarte and Congress and thus revive the protests of December and January.

At the head, the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP), which in addition to the presidential resignation demands the advancement of the general elections. Part of the protesters also demand the implementation of a Constituent Assembly, which is the main point of the political agenda of Peru Libre (PL), the Marxist-Leninist party that supports Castillo.

The first president has a rejection of 80% of the population and Parliament has it even worse, with 90% of the country against her. In his favor, the recovery of citizen tranquility after the months that convulsed the Andean country.

“We do not understand why now they once again wave their war flags and announce that they will arrive in Lima, wanting to take over the entire country from the center.. It is a threat to democracy, as a democratic government we are not going to allow or accept it,” the president harangued in a message to the country from the Government Palace, escorted by her ministers. The Ministry of the Interior anticipated the deployment of 24,000 police officers and the extension of the state of emergency on national highways.

Very similar words, but to expose the opposite, used the former centrist president Martín Vizcarra, who joined the protests: “Democracy is in danger, if we lose our capacity for indignation and do not protest peacefully at the time, then it will be too late.”

The demonstrators break the police cordon and reach the outside of the Congress

Thousands of people who took to the streets of Lima to protest this Wednesday broke through the police cordon located at one of the points in the historic center and reached the exterior of the Peruvian Congress, whose closure they have been demanding since the beginning of the year, as well as the resignation of President Dina Boluarte.

The mobilization that brought together social, political, union and student organizations passed peacefully in its movement between the Dos de Mayo and San Martín squares, but, halfway, it stopped in front of a police fence that prevented access to Abancay avenue, which crosses a good part of the center of the capital. At the end of that avenue is the Parliament building, which remained closed and guarded by the National Police with tanks and other mobile units.

The demonstrators began to push the shields of the police officers and throw water bottles and other objects to break the siege, and they finally succeeded after a confrontation, in which there was no shortage of tear gas and smoke bombs.. The Police detained a protester who confronted the agents wrapped in a flag. A group of agents went on motorcycles to another access point to Congress to prevent the massive arrival of protesters, while a greater number of police officers went to block the passage on the avenue.

Once there, local television showed the president of Congress, José Williams, watching from a balcony the protesters who continued to arrive outside, a situation that had not occurred in the protest mobilizations of the previous months.

exhaust the legislature

Bolaurte, the vice president who replaced the ousted Castillo, has managed to remain at the head of the country thanks to the support received in Congress from a large part of the right and Fujimorismo. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the protests in December and January the president announced to the country that she supported the electoral advance, even for this year, the parliamentary maneuvers of her allies prevented it from coming to fruition.. Boluarte plans to govern until July 2026 to exhaust the current legislature.

“This issue is closed, we will continue to work responsibly,” the president backed down, over whom a heavy sword of Damocles gravitates: the fifty fatalities caused, in large part, by police repression during the protests. The national universities of Cajamarca, Castillo's homeland, woke up taken over by students.

One of the great battles will be the seizure of the roads, a key factor during the protests last December and January. The anti-government groups then managed to paralyze part of the country's transport and hinder the logistics of food and basic products. In Cusco and Arequipa, the epicenter of the demonstrations, the suspension of face-to-face classes was decreed.

The historic Taking of Lima, also known as the March of the Four Suyos (the Incas divided their empire into Four Suyos), is part of the great democratic milestones of Latin America. Led among others by the now imprisoned Toledo, it caused the fall of the dictator Alberto Fujimori and his right-hand man, the sinister Vladimiro Montesinos. Toledo had just lost the 2000 elections in a new electoral fraud by Fujimori. Today these two former presidents are the only tenants, along with Pedro Castillo, of the Barbadillo prison in Lima.

Despite the self-coup led by the teacher from Cajamarca in December, various presidents of the Patria Grande, such as the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro and the Colombian Gustavo Petro, maintain their unrestricted support for the standard bearer of Peru Libre.