Thousands of Peruvians march against Castillo, government
Lima, Nov 5 (EFE).- Thousands of demonstrators protested Saturday in Lima and other cities against the Peruvian government with chants and banners demanding President Pedro Castillo’s resignation or dismissal.
Under the slogan “Peru Reacts,” the main squares of various Peruvian towns were filled with flags and red-and-white shirts.
The largest march took place in the capital, where thousands of citizens walked the streets of its historic center with posters calling for the resignation of the president.
“Castillo out, out now,” “Delinquent out” and “Corrupt” read some of them.
“The corruption of this Castillo government is leading our people to the abyss (…) the people no longer want him, he has deceived us,” Juan Marco Vélez told EFE.
In the same sense, Nancy Valdivieso urged her compatriots to “listen and wake up.”
During the march in Lima, there were some small clashes between the National Police of Peru (PNP) and a small group of protesters who wanted to reach Congress and Government Palace, which were surrounded by security.
During the incident, the officers tried to force the protesters back with tear gas, which triggered the throwing of objects at the police and their horses.
The Ombudsman’s Office urged the PNP through social networks to make “rational and strictly necessary use of tear gas” and to avoid the use of horses in the marches.
The protest was replicated peacefully in other cities, including southern Arequipa and Cuzco and northern La Libertad and Piura.
Since Castillo took office in July last year, there have been various marches for and against the president, who in 15 months has dodged two failed attempts at impeachment by the parliamentary opposition, which is now preparing a third motion.
On Saturday morning during an official duty, Castillo reiterated his conviction that he will reach the end of his term in 2026 and that his government will defeat “the enemies of change and the conservatives” who he claims are trying to break him with “disinformation, with false accusations and slander.”
“They will have me until the last day of my term because the people have decided so,” said the president, who has repeatedly denounced a “plot” between a sector of the opposition, the press and the judiciary to remove him from power through what he described as a “new form of coup d’état.”
Castillo made this accusation for the first time a day after Attorney General Patricia Benavides filed a constitutional complaint against him in Congress for allegedly leading a criminal organization that the Public Ministry accuses of having obtained money from fraudulent bids for public works. EFE
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