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image source, Getty Images
In a series of messages shared on social networks, Pedro Castillo said this Monday that he has not resigned from his position as president of Peru and rejected the call for new elections proposed by the president who replaces him, Dina Boluarte.
Through his Twitter account, Castillo shared a letter in which he affirms that he has been “humiliated, incommunicado, mistreated and kidnapped”in reference to the preventive detention that weighs once morest him when being investigated for the crime of “rebellion”.
He asked Peruvians not to fall into the “dirty game of new elections” which, he stated, is a “strategy of the Peruvian right-wing political forces.”
Castillo was removed by Congress from Peru last December 7 through a presidential vacancy motion for “moral incapacity”.
Hours before the vote, the president decreed the dissolution of Congress and the installation of an emergency government.
Politicians from his government team and the majority of congressmen described the decree as a breach of the constitutional order.
image source, Getty Images
Among the demands of protesters in recent days is the closure of Congress and the release of Castillo.
Dina Boluarte, Castillo’s then vice president, was appointed as the new president to serve the term that ends in July 2026.
Since then, protests in Peru have increased, both once morest Congress and the new government.
In the clashes between protesters and the police there have been at least two deaths until this Monday.
What did Castillo say?
Since his message to the nation on December 7, Castillo had made no public pronouncements.
In the letter posted on Twitter and dated December 12, he said that he was addressing the Peruvian people “to reiterate that I am unconditionally faithful to the popular and constitutional mandate that I hold as president.”
“I will not give up or abandon my highaand sacred functions”he added.
In addition to pointing out that he is “humiliated, incommunicado, mistreated and kidnapped” by the preventive detention once morest him, he rejected the proposal that Boluarte made this Monday for Congress to approve the call for general elections in 2024.
Without naming the vice president, he said: “What was said recently by a usurper is nothing more than the same snot and drool of the coup right-wing. Therefore, the people should not fall into their dirty game of new elections.”
He demanded his immediate release and reiterated the proposal he made on December 7 for a vote that conforms an assembly that drafts a new Constitution.
This Monday, the national prosecutor Liz Patricia Benavides presented a complaint once morest Castillo for “rebellion, conspiracy and serious disturbance of public peace”which opens a legal process once morest the former president.
image source, Government of Peru
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