Kenji making first play for Peru’s presidency?
Kenji Fujimori has dissociated himself completely from the right-wing Fuerza Popular (FP, Fujimoristas) led by his sister Keiko, who is being held in pre-trial detention on suspicion of corruption related to Brazil’s construction company Odebrecht and obstruction of justice. Kenji said this week that FP had only itself to blame for the decision by President Martín Vizcarra to dissolve congress on 30 September.
Addressing the issue for the first time in a letter published on his website on 16 October, Kenji said that the decision by the FP majority in congress to elect a magistrate to the constitutional tribunal (TC) in open defiance of President Vizcarra, who had made the matter a motion of confidence, was “the latest in a long list of nonsensical decisions, an imprudent act which served as the pretext for dissolving congress”. Kenji said FP had given no solid arguments for its haste in appointing Gonzalo Ortíz de Zevallos, a cousin of the president of congress Pedro Olaechea, as a TC magistrate and he suspected it was an attempt to duck a new wave of Odebrecht-related corruption allegations.
Kenji said that FP’s decision to bring down former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) had “opened Pandora’s box to all the evils that have tormented Peru since”. Kenji said he had no intention of returning to the party from which he was expelled last year after striking a deal with a tottering Kuczynski facing impeachment. Kenji, who received more votes than any other congressional candidate in the 2016 elections, said he was “awaiting new faces to emerge in Peruvian politics equal to the task of making changes in the country”. Distancing himself unequivocally from FP could be the first move towards positioning himself as the “new face” of Fujimorismo in presidential elections in 2021.
Kenji also happened to publish his letter the day before the TC is due to debate an appeal presented by Olaechea on 10 October against the dissolution of congress and whether to accept Ortíz de Zevallos as a TC magistrate. Before it can consider the legitimacy of Vizcarra’s decision to dissolve congress, however, the TC will need to decide whether the appeal is even admissible. Olaechea is now the head of the permanent commission of congress, a body which is not empowered to make such a legal challenge. Vizcarra has accused Olaechea of “usurping the function” of president of congress by signing the appeal document as such.