Peru returns to a bicameral legislature

Peru has returned, as of this Friday and after 34 years, to a bicameral parliament composed of a chamber of senators and another of deputies. For nearly a quarter of a century, the congress operated with a single chamber that became the epicenter of the political instability that has characterized the country over the last decade, with eight presidents in ten years. The Andean country had not had a bicameral Parliament since the “self-coup” perpetrated by former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), father of Keiko Fujimori, on April 5, 1992. At that time, he dissolved the Legislature and intervened in the Judiciary to rule by decree until the establishment of a Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1993 Peruvian constitution, with a unicameral Congress. In 2018, a referendum was held on the return to a bicameral system, but the ‘No’ vote won with 90.51% of the valid votes. Congress members included a provision to bypass the reform that prohibited reelection and to be able to alternate between the two chambers. Despite that rejection in the popular vote, Congress managed two years ago to reach enough consensus to reform the Constitution and establish two chambers.
Read the full article here: De Ultimo Minuto