Keiko Fujimori supporters march on Peru’s Government Palace, attack ministers’ cars

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A march of supporters of defeated presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori arrived at the vicinity of the Peruvian Government Palace and attacked the car of two ministers of State with them inside; they managed to be freed with the help of the National Police.

The interim president, Francisco Sagasti, declared that “what has happened today marks a break, and will not continue”, in an interview with Canal N.

The National Police identified the alleged perpetrators and will apply its protocols to prevent them from generating disturbances again, stated Sagasti.

“It’s a tiny group of violent people who mobilize others, but no one planning a peaceful march is going there with sticks,” he noted.

Sagasti said that the government has respected all peaceful demonstrations held in recent months, but that “people who demonstrate violently are prevented from doing so by the national police.”

REJECTION OF ATTACK AGAINST MINISTERS

The Presidency of the Council of Ministers issued a statement in which it “firmly rejected the acts of violence to which two ministers of State have been subjected,” when they were on their way to a work meeting at the Government Palace.

“Citizens have the right to express themselves freely, but without assaulting other people or affecting public or private property,” the statement added.

The assaulted ministers were the heads of Health, Oscar Ugarte, and of Housing, Solangel Fernandez, when they were on their way in official cars to participate in a press conference to advise on the measures adopted on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ugarte explained an incident in which “a contingent of demonstrators from Fuerza Popular surrounded the car they identified as official and began to beat and stone the car.”

“It is violence against a vehicle that is official and, therefore, with a symbol of the Government”, remarked Ugarte in a press conference with the president of the Council of Ministers, Violeta Bermudez.

INSIST ON ELECTORAL FRAUD

The demonstrators, including members of the radical group called La Resistencia, carried signs repeating Fujimori’s discourse on “electoral fraud” in the recent elections and questioned the transitional president Sagasti for supposedly taking sides in favor of Pedro Castillo, the candidate who won the presidential runoff.

Castillo has not yet been proclaimed by the National Jury of Elections (JNE) because Fujimori’s Popular Force party has challenged thousands of votes, appeals that have been rejected for lack of evidence, but can still be appealed again by the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

During the mobilization through the streets of downtown Lima, the demonstrators assaulted journalists and cameramen. They clashed with the National Police, who repressed them with tear gas to prevent them from entering the Government House.

FUJIMORI CONDEMNED VIOLENCE

The Fuerza Popular candidate declared, through her Twitter account, that her party “rejects all acts of violence that have been carried out today against members of the press, private property, and the Health Minister’s car.”

“I reject these attitudes and publicly condemn them in the hope that those responsible will be identified,” she added.

The former congresswoman said that these acts should not be confused with the peaceful protests in the country. She urged her militants and supporters “not to go to calls that have a very different objective than the defense of democracy.”

Lawyer Julio César Castiglioni, member of the legal team of Fuerza Popular, declared to the newspaper El Comercio that the pro-Fujimori group would appeal at least 15 records of the Special Electoral Juries (JEE) that do not favor its candidate.

“It is not our problem if the proclamation process is delayed or not; it is a problem of those who did not want to facilitate the clarification of the fraud issue”, said Castiglioni.