Violent new street protests swept downtown Lima Saturday evening, hours after a Roman Catholic cardinal expressed dismay that the national congress again refused to hold elections to defuse the political crisis in Peru.
As night fell, thousands of protesters clashed with riot police, dispersed under volleys of tear gas, but regrouped in an attempt to reach the Congress of Peru.
In the last of two months of often-fatal protests, some demonstrators returned fire at police with homemade fireworks.
A count of arrests and wounded was not immediately available.
Meanwhile, the Peruvian legislature received a rebuke from a high-ranking Roman Catholic prelate.
“It pains us that they put forward (inactive) a proposal to postpone the election,” Cardinal Pedro Barreto said hours after the church’s top body sent a letter to lawmakers warning of the “urgent need” to postpone the election. until the end of this year.
A day earlier, Congress slammed the door until August on any further debate on postponing the general election, currently scheduled for April 2024, to 2023, a key demand of the near-daily demonstrations that are hurting the country of 33 million people.
For the fourth time in a week, lawmakers rejected an election bill, blocking further discussion of procedural fines.
The move clouded prospects for a recovery from a crisis that has claimed 48 lives since then-president Pedro Castillo was arrested on Dec. 7 after trying to dissolve Congress and impose a decree.
In December, lawmakers pushed back elections originally due in 2026 to April 2024, but as protesters hit their heels, Dina Boluarte, Castillo’s former vice president, called for a vote this year instead.
Boluarte’s original intention was to extend Castillo’s term until 2026, but amid an explosion of protests, she urged Congress to push back the date.
