Castillo will submit to the Peruvian Congress a bill for a referendum on a new Constitution

The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, announced on Friday that he will submit to Congress a bill to allow Peruvian citizens to be consulted in this year's regional and municipal elections on the drafting of a new Constitution.

“We are going to send a bill to Congress so that in these upcoming municipal and regional elections, through a ballot, the Peruvian people will be consulted whether or not they agree with a new Constitution,” said the Peruvian president, as reported in the newspaper 'El Comercio'.

This was announced by the Peruvian president after a decentralized Council of Ministers in Cusco, where he also assured that they are already working on this bill that they will send to the Legislative.

As explained by the Peruvian network RPP, the National Jury of Elections (JNE) explained that the call for a referendum for constitutional reform requires the approval of Congress with an absolute majority of its members.

“We will send this bill that we are going to work on it immediately,” said Castillo, who said he is aware that Parliament is the one that has in its hands the power to approve the proposal, as reported by the newspaper 'La República'.

Peru's Prime Minister Aníbal Torres ruled out in March calling a constituent assembly to reform the Constitution. In this regard, Torres stated during a press conference that the Government did not propose or will propose the formation of a constituent assembly.

At the end of July, President Castillo announced that he would present a project to create a constituent assembly, thus fulfilling one of his electoral promises. The current Constitution does not allow the creation of such boards, which are configured as a step prior to the elaboration of a hypothetical new Magna Carta.

Despite this, the former minister of Peru, Mirtha Vásquez, also stressed — joining Torres — that the creation of a constituent assembly for the drafting of a new Constitution “was not a priority” of the Peruvian government.

Vasquez said the process for a new Magna Carta had no place because what mattered was “addressing the pandemic,” “strengthening education,” or guaranteeing “access to something fundamental like food.”

As part of these continuous attempts to achieve constitutional reform, the ruling Peru-Libre party, to which Castillo belongs, introduced a bill in September to carry out this measure.

The drafter of the proposal, Congressman Álex Flores Ramírez, assured in the text that the country's current Magna Carta “endorses the neoliberal model, with its extractivist and denial of rights”.

(With information from Europa Press)

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