Peru president urges Congress to bring elections forward amid deadly protests - Reuters Canada

LIMA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who has said she is starring a transitional government, urged the country's Congress to walk a connection to bring guardant wide elections successful a quality league from the statesmanlike palace connected Saturday.

Boluarte, formerly Peru's vice president, assumed the presidency earlier this period aft leftist then-President Pedro Castillo tried to illegally dissolve Congress and was arrested.

Since then, protests person breached retired crossed the country, and astatine slightest 17 radical person been killed. Another 5 person died of indirect consequences of the protests, according to authorities.

Boluarte connected Saturday countered protesters asking for her to measurement down, saying "that does not lick the problem" and that she had done her portion by sending the measure to Congress.

On Friday, Peru's Congress rejected the projected law reform to determination elections guardant to December 2023. Some members of Congress person called for the legislature to reconsider the proposal.

"I request that the ballot to bring elections up beryllium reconsidered," Boluarte said, criticizing Congress members who had antecedently abstained from voting.

She besides dismissed calls for a law assembly, saying it was "not the time." Some leftist leaders person called for the assembly, which would redraft Peru's 1993 constitution, to boost the state's relation successful the economy.

Boluarte said determination would beryllium a reshuffling of her Cabinet successful the coming days arsenic well, pursuing the resignation of the acquisition curate and civilization curate Friday.

"We volition person a recomposition of the Cabinet, to beryllium capable to instal knowledgeable ministers successful each sector," she said.

The Cabinet departures Friday rise questions astir the longevity of Boluarte's government, which has been rocked by governmental turbulence.

Protests since the apprehension of erstwhile President Castillo, who is successful pretrial detention portion facing charges of rebellion and conspiracy, person crippled Peru's transport system, shuttering airports and blocking highways.

On Wednesday, Boluarte's authorities announced a state of emergency, granting constabulary peculiar powers and limiting citizens' rights, including the close to assembly.

Protesters person besides blockaded Peru's borders, leaving tourists stranded and strangling trade.

"We privation the contiguous closure of Congress; we privation the resignation of Dina Boluarte," Rene Mendoza, a protester astatine the borderline with Bolivia, told Reuters. "Today the Peruvian radical are successful mourning. ... The full of Peru is successful a struggle."

The caput of Peru's equipped forces, Manuel Gomez, slammed protesters during the quality conference. "These atrocious radical are moving from actions that are convulsive to actions that are terroristic."

Later Saturday, constabulary raided the office of a leftist enactment and a peasant radical successful the capital, Lima, nether suspicion of protecting specified "violent" actors, the agents claimed.

Leftist politicians rejected the raids. "The authorities of exigency is being utilized to perpetrate abuses," said legislator Sigrid Bazan, who went to 1 of the sites.

Reporting by Marco Aquino and Kylie Madry; Additional reporting from Monica Machicao; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis

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