President López Obrador opposed the expected transfer of the Pacific Alliance's leadership to Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, calling her administration "spurious" during his daily press conference on Friday.
President López Obrador opposed the expected transfer of the Pacific Alliance's leadership to Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, calling her administration "spurious" during his daily press conference on Friday.
Boluarte has faced criticism from López Obrador ever since she assumed charge in Dec. following Pedro Castillo's impeachment.
In Dec., he declared the country's diplomatic ties with Peru to be "on hold" and refused to acknowledge her as the president of the country.
The Mexico president announced that he will urge the SRE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to consult with the other member countries in the alliance (Colombia and Chile) regarding his desire to abdicate withhold the presidency, reports Mexicon News Daily.
"I do not want to hand over [the presidency] to a government that I consider spurious. Let the members of the group decide," AMLO said.
"If they say we hand over the presidency, we do it. But I am going to start the consultation. I don't want to legitimize a coup, we can't do it, that's contrary to freedoms, contrary to human rights and it's anti-democratic," AMLO added.
López Obrador, who presided over the Pacific Alliance in 2022, was supposed to hand over control of the four-nation alliance to Pedro Castillo in Nov. It was suspended, nevertheless, because Castillo was barred from leaving Peru by the Peruvian Congress due to an open corruption investigation against him.
The summit was then postponed to Dec., where Castillo's impeachment and arrest caused problems again.
"We are looking for a way to hand off the presidency," President López Obrador said, "but when the meeting was going to take place, they did not allow the president [Castillo| to leave."
"Then we were going to visit Peru, and they arrested him for what I consider to be a technical coup."
On Wednesday, Boluarte addressed Mexico's resistance to handing over the presidency.
Boluarte said in a statement, "In January of this year, Peru should have assumed the pro tempore presidency," "However, due to the President of Mexico's political situation, he is harming those who comprise the Pacific Alliance because he does not want to hand over the pro-tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance to us."
In response to Castillo's expulsion, there have been ongoing demonstrations and disturbances in Peru, and as of last week, at least 60 people had died.
The majority of the murders have occurred in places with a majority Indigenous population, according to Amnesty International, which on Wednesday accused the Peruvian government of a "marked discriminatory prejudice" in its crackdowns against the protestors.
"They put him in jail. There are no legal grounds, and what is in the background is a classist, racist attitude," the president said Friday.
"Since he is a humble teacher from the mountains, he was harassed by Congress from the beginning," the president added.
Castillo's wife and children have been given asylum by López Obrador, who has asserted that Castillo's impeachment was a coup planned by the oligarchy.
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