Lima: A MOTION to force Peru’s education minister from office sailed through the opposition-controlled Congress yesterday in the latest blow to President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s five-month-old government.
Tensions between the president and the right-wing populist party Popular Force, led by Kuczynski’s defeated rival Keiko Fujimori, have escalated as opposition lawmakers pushed for the ouster of Education Minister Jaime Saavedra because of alleged corruption in public contracts on his watch.
The drawn-out battle over Saavedra drew thousands of his supporters into the streets and revealed divisions in Kuczynski’s centrist party, with some saying last week that Saavedra should step down so the government could focus on other things.
Peru’s 130-seat single-chamber Congress voted 78-0 to oust Saavedra, with nearly all of Popular Force’s 72 lawmakers backing the motion. Most ruling party lawmakers and members of a leftist bloc walked out of vote in protest.
The government hopes the motion to remove Saavedra will mark an end to hostilities.
