Bogota, Colombia – Peru’s presidential election has been upended by news that prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence for Roberto Sánchez, one of the two candidates running in next month’s runoff election.
Prosecutors announced Tuesday that they are seeking five years and four months in prison for alleged campaign donation corruption to Together for Peru.Together for Peru) parties from 2020 to 2021.
The announcement sparked existing concerns about the integrity of elections and the state of Peru’s democracy, which has faced frequent crises in recent years.
If the prosecution is successful, Sánchez will be barred from running in elections scheduled for June 7.
Candidate Lee denied the charges, saying, “I proved that I did not personally use the party’s financial resources, and that is why the fraud charge was dismissed by the court as a serious crime.”
The timing of the release of the document, which was leaked to the media on May 12 and officially released the next day, raised suspicions in some quarters of an attempt to rig the election. The prosecutors’ resolution was announced Jan. 15, according to the documents, but was only made public this week, as Sánchez closed his bid for a runoff election after a long period of voting.
Jo Marie Burt of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) said the charges could be a sign that an elite coalition in Congress is trying to subvert the electoral process to avoid a possible return to power for Sánchez.
“One cannot help but see this as a politically motivated move to remove him as a viable candidate,” she said. Latin America Report.
Sánchez, a leftist former trade minister, is set to face off against Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing politician who has dominated Peruvian politics for the past decade but has lost each of the last three presidential runoffs.
WOLA’s Burt sees Keiko Fujimori’s hand behind this intervention: “(The Prosecutor’s Office) is currently run by people who are close allies of Keiko Fujimori and her associates, so there are concerns that this action against Sánchez is politically motivated.”
Prosecutors’ decision to seek a prison sentence for Sánchez is just the latest in a series of actions that have raised concerns about the integrity of Peru’s judiciary.
The prosecutor’s office is technically independent of the executive and legislative branches, but has been clouded by charges of politicization since Justice Minister Thomas Galvez, seen as an ally of Fujimori, took office.
Last November, Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN independent special rapporteur on the judiciary and lawyers, raised concerns about the ouster of Attorney General Delia Espinoza, who had been actively investigating organized crime and collusion between lawmakers.
“Judicial independence is not optional. It is the foundation of democracy,” she said after Congress voted to ban Espinoza from holding public office for 10 years.
Replace Espinoza with Gálvez – Gálvez is under investigation for links to organized crime. white collar in port Influence peddling scandal – fears deepen about the integrity of Peru’s judiciary. In January this year, he announced three major corruption investigation departments, including the Corruption Investigation Department. white collar In some cases, it was being shut down.
Peru’s National Human Rights Coordinator argued at the time that this “results in an institutional breakdown that seriously undermines the fight against impunity by jeopardizing ongoing investigations.”
Featured image caption: Roberto Sánchez attends a campaign rally.
Featured image credit: Roberto Sánchez via Facebook
