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Cordon policeman near the Congress in Lima, October 1, 2019. REUTERS / Guadalupe Pardo

Peru woke up this October 1st with two presidents. On Monday evening, President Martin Vizcarra dissolved the opposition-dominated parliament and called for parliamentary elections. In response, parliamentarians voted to suspend the head of state. Lighting by Lissell Quiroz, doctor of history and lecturer at Rouen-Normandie University.

RFI: They were thousands of people tonight celebrating President Vizcarra's decision to dissolve Parliament. What do you think of this popular reaction?

Lissell Quiroz : Peruvians have been really frustrated for years with corruption scandals affecting the judiciary and traditional political parties. Peruvians went out into the streets to show their commitment to a real democracy open to all. They want to exclude those who have shown their inability to create a peaceful and constructive political climate. It is a majority current within the population. The end of 2018 referendum clearly showed that Peruvians voted overwhelmingly for constitutional reforms to limit the powers of deputies and magistrates, who are largely involved in these corruption scandals.

How did we come to this dissolution of Parliament?

Since Martin Vizcarra assumes the presidency, he presents himself as the one who comes to put order, which renews the Peruvian policy. He immediately found himself in a tense stand with the Parliament, which resisted reforms. It is the most powerful instance of the Peruvian political system and is dominated by the Fujimori opposition. Faced with this blockage, President Vizcarra claims that he had no choice but to put an end to the abscess by using the last possibility that the Constitution gave him: to dissolve Parliament.

In response, Congress voted to suspend the president for a year and appointed his vice president, Mercedes Araoz, acting president. What can be the scenario of the next days?

The situation is really very complex. Parliament is trying to resist, but the army and police have sided with President Vizcarra, which provides some form of political stability. The president called legislative elections on January 26. Martin Vizcarra is counting on the citizen mobilization of all anti-fujimorists for parliamentarians to bend to this scenario. The other possible scenario is that Parliament maintain the suspension of Martin Vizcarra. To do this, parliamentarians will rely on all possible legal and legislative texts, and appeal to international bodies such as the Organization of American States (OAS) to prove that they have the right with them. The last scenario is that Martin Vizcarra, pushed to the limit, is forced to mobilize the force to invest Parliament. But then he would take the risk of appearing as the one who breaks a constitutional state.