Peru’s interim president Manuel Merino resigns in less than a week of assuming office

Peru’s interim president, Manuel Merino, has quit less than a week into his new government, after a night of demonstrations asking for his dismissal and the subsequent police crackdown left at least two dead and dozens injured.

The latest political shake-up appears as Peru encounters the coronavirus pandemic and what is suspected to be its most critical economic recession in a century.

People flooded into the streets to celebrate Merino’s resignation on Sunday, waving flags, singing and beating pots, although the news dives Peru deeper into the dilemma and legal confusion as lawmakers now tussle over who will take his position.

Congress is demanded to hold a second referendum in the evening after a first vote disappointed to accumulate preponderance support for left-wing legislator and human rights defender Rocio Silva-Santisteban to be named, interim president.

A tense calm controlled in the capital, Lima, as Peruvians demanded a settlement on who the next president would be.

“Merino has quit because his hands are tainted with blood, with the blood of our children,” stated Clarisa Gomez, one of those who rolled out to celebrate Merino’s resignation, while continuing that the senators who put him in control should also pay.

The opposition-dominated Congress voted last Monday to remove Merino’s forerunner Martin Vizcarra as president, over corruption allegations which he refuses.

In a televised speech, Merino, the former head of Congress who had led the push to impeach Vizcarra, asked his cabinet to stay on to help in the transition.

“I want to let the whole country to know that I’m resigning,” Merino said in Sunday’s address. He added the move was “inevitable” and asked for “harmony and unity”.

Merino’s resignation observed a groundswell of politicians pushing him to step down, calling the destruction against the country’s citizens.