LIMA: Peru’s Congress on Friday voted to dismiss the country’s interior minister over his failure to contain a spike in violent crime following the murder of a popular singer.
MPs voted by 79 votes in favor to 11 against to remove Juan Jose Santivanez from office over “his political responsibility and inability to tackle the wave of citizen insecurity facing the country.”
Twenty lawmakers abstained.
The minister’s dismissal comes amid heightened emotions in the South American country following the shooting dead Sunday of cumbia star Paul Flores, 39, by hitmen who attacked his tour bus after a concert outside the capital Lima.
Flores’s Armonia 10 band was being ransomed by a criminal gang, which had threatened to kill the lead singer unless the group paid it protection money.
Friday’s vote of no-confidence in the interior minister came just before a demonstration in Lima.
Hundreds of people marched toward the Peruvian Congress to demand the government crack down on extortion and murder in the wake of Flores’s murder.
“Today we are here to support the fight against violence, not only against musicians but also against everyone,“ Alan Meriche, a 38-year-old shopkeeper, told AFP.
“I’m protesting to demand justice (and for) no more deaths. My son was killed eight months ago over a cell phone,“ Celinda Armas, 60, told AFP. “Is life worthless?”
In the first three months of the year, 459 crime-related homicides were recorded in Peru, according to the National Information System of Deaths.
According to Peruvian media, it is the highest figure in two decades.
The government on Monday declared a month-long state of emergency in the capital to allow for the deployment of soldiers to help police crack down on organized crime.
Racketeering — part of a crime wave that has spread to many Latin American countries that were previously considered relatively safe — has reached alarming proportions in Peru.
Entire neighborhoods live in fear of gangs, including transnational gangs such as Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua, that threaten bus drivers, shopkeepers, hairdressers and even teachers if they do not pay protection money.
President Dina Boluarte has 72 hours to name a new interior minister to replace Santivanez.
