The Peruvian Congress approved this Friday the possibility that an advance election could be analyzed again by the Constitution Commission to, eventually, be evaluated in the current legislature by the plenary session of the Legislature.
The decision was made with 69 votes in favor, 35 against and 7 abstentions.
The president of Congress, José Williams, clarified that this measure "it is only to authorize the topic to be seen in the annual period of sessions" and? "there is no bill that can be introduced" at this time before the plenary.
"Consequently, the constitutional reform initiatives in terms of elections will be the object of study and opinion in the Commission of Constitution and Regulation to be later published for seven days."indicated.
In this way, the president of the Constitution Commission, the Fujimorista Hernando Guerra García, must urgently convene the members of his working group to analyze a new project to advance elections, after the rejection of four initiatives presented by the Executive .
Television Channel N pointed out that, for this decision to be implemented, this legislature must be extended until February 28.
Before the vote, Williams reported that the possibility of resubmitting an early election ruling was approved by the Board of Spokespersons.
Given this, legislator Jorge Montoya, from the ultra-conservative Renovación Popular party, raised a "point of order" after saying that his bench did not agree with the "reconsideration of reconsideration"
"We consider that this initiative is arbitrary and unconstitutional"he emphasized before pointing out that in this same legislature other proposals to advance elections have been rejected "not having reached the legal number of votes (in plenary session) and being dismissed by the Constitution Commission".
Williams replied that this request was not appropriate because the last decision was made by the Board of Spokespersons and that the plenary session was only going to pronounce itself if it was "agree or not" with the possibility that the Constitution Commission be authorized to elaborate a new project.
The president of Congress already announced last Saturday that the Legislature could still approve a bill that includes early elections, despite the fact that the plenary session rejected initiatives that raised that possibility up to four times in recent weeks.
The advancement of elections is one of the main demands of the anti-government protests that began in various parts of the country two months ago and in which 70 people have died.
But Congress has not agreed to approve any of the four legislative initiatives that included this advancement of general elections for 2023 or 2024, two of them proposed by the Executive and another two by parliamentary groups, including Fujimori.
"If the plenary session of Congress accepts it, the projects that arrive in the Constitution Commission will review them in the corresponding times"Williams said, pointing out that this working group has to find sufficient arguments to propose one of the previous projects or a new one to the plenary session.
The current legislature in Congress ended last Friday, but that same day Williams announced that it would be extended until February 17 and now it would have to be extended again so that the project proposed by the Constitution can be debated.
