President Castillo declares auto-coup but is removed from office

In a surprise address to the nation, President Pedro Castillo on Wednesday declared the temporary closure of Congress and decreed a nationwide curfew but ended up booted from office instead.

The announcement was met with broad resignations from Castillo’s revolving-door Cabinet and across his shaky administration. Congress defiantly pledged to oppose the attempted overthrow of constitutional order.

The Joint Chiefs of Peru’s armed forces and the national police refused to back the beleaguered head of state. Congress promptly voted to remove Castillo from power in a 101-to-6 vote, with 11 abstentions, for moral incapacity.

As the vote was taking place, Peruvian television reported that Castillo and his family were packing their belongings. Then images flashed of the president, in a light blue windbreaker, abandoning the Government Palace. Cable news Canal N reported right after the vote that Castillo was in police custody. Castillo was accompanied at the Prefecture by his former cabinet chief, Aníbal Torres, while the Attorney General Patricia Benavides and the General Prosecutor informed him of the charges of rebelion and breaking the constitutional orderbeing being considered for the attempted coup. The judiciary has 48 hours to define the charges or to release Castillo.

“This is a coup that aggravates the political and institutional crisis that Peruvian society will have to overcome with strict adherence to the law,” said Castillo’s vice president Dina Boluarte.

Boluarte was sworn in as Head of State at 3 p.m. before the assembled members of Congress. She is Peru’s first woman president in the country’s 200 years as a republic.

In her brief address in Congress, Boluarte called for a political truce to install a government of national unity, in “this difficult situation, which puts all of us citizens to the test.” Boluarte condemned President Castillo’s decision and said she was thankful that his unconstitutional actions had found no support in the institutions of democracy or in the streets.

“I assume the position of constitutional president of the Republic, aware of the enormous responsibility, and my first invocation is to call on the widest unity of all Peruvians.”

“I request valuable time to rescue our country from corruption and misgovernment,” she added.

Meanwhile, the President’s office, via Twitter, announced that the curfew announced by President Castillo — from 10pm to 4am— has been cancelled.

At the same time, police continued to guard the entrance to the Mexican Embassy, to prevent a possible request for asylum by Castillo’s wife, Lilia Paredes, and their children. Paredes, although under investigation for possible collusion in illicit government contracts, faces a number of restrictions but these do not include any travel restrictions.

Late in the evening, President Castillo was transferred to the police special operations divison in the district of Rimac, where he will spend the night. Coincidentally, ex-President Alberto Fujimori is serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and human rights abuses in the same police division. Fujimori pulled an auto-coup in 1992 when he closed an obstreperous Congress but, in contrast to Castillo, he had the full backing of the armed forces and police.