Peruvian lawmakers call for PPK to resign (Dec. 15, 2017)

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) said he will not resign, in response to growing pressure regarding allegations of corruption. Scandal-plagued Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht SA paid Kuczynski $5 million dollars in advisory fees while he was Economy Minister a decade ago. Kuczynski initially denied links to Odebrecht, but later admitted to carrying out an advisory role. (See Tuesday's briefs.)

On Wednesday a Peruvian congressional committee investigating allegations stemming from Brazil's massive "Car Wash" graft investigation said it had information showing a consultancy set up by Kuczynski received payments from Odebrecht when he was a minister. The committee said documents received from Odebrecht showed the company paid $780,000 from 2004 to 2007 the financial-consulting business set up by Kuczynski and of which he was sole director, reports the Wall Street Journal. In a defiant address yesterday, Kuczynski said payments were made by Odebrecht to Westfield Capital Ltd a company he said he owned but did not manage while he held senior government roles. 

Last weekend Kuczynski also said he had also worked for a different consultancy after he left the Toledo administration. That firm, First Capital Inversiones Y Asesoriase, received some $4 million from Odebrecht for work that included an irrigation project in northern Peru, according to the WSJ.

Peru's right wing Popular Force, which has a legislative majority, has threatened to begin impeachment proceedings if PPK does not resign, reports the BBC. Four other opposition parties joined calls for his exit, reports Bloomberg. They joined the promise to impeach if PPK does not resign, reports La Republica. And several senior officials in the government privately favored Kuczynski's ouster rather than a protracted battle for survival, reports Reuters.

The struggle could be on the level of the worst crisis Peru has faced since dictator Alberto Fujimori fled in 2000 over a corruption scandal, according to Reuters. La Republica analyzes potential paths of succession.

The president was adamant yesterday. On Twitter he wrote: "It cost us a lot to get our democracy back. We're not going to lose it again. I'm not going to give up my honor, nor my values, nor my responsibilities as president of all Peruvians." He promised to give authorities access to his banking records and submit to questioning in Congress next week, as well as by the attorney general’s office.

And in a speech to the Peruvian Army's officer school Kuczynski urged Peruvians to focus on the country's urgent problems, such as "corruption resulting from the administrative disorder, the lack of culture and honesty, drugs damaging society, as well as poverty in Andean and Amazon regions," reports Andina.

In a landmark plea deal last year with U.S., Swiss and Brazilian authorities, Odebrecht admitted last year to paying $800 million in bribes, including $29 million in in Peru over three administrations from 2005 to 2014. 

In an unrelated scandal, PPK is considering releasing authoritarian former president Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25 year jail sentence for crimes against humanity, reports U.S. News and World Report. While PPK says there is a humanitarian argument for a "reprieve" for the 79-year old former dictator, who oversaw rampant graft, death squads and vote-rigging, reports U.S. News.

News Briefs

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• Argentine social activist Milagro Sala is nearing on two years of pre-trial prison. After numerous international calls for her release or at least transfer to house arrest, including an order from the Intern-American Court of Human Rights, she has been transferred to a house, though it is not her actual place of resident, reports Horacio Verbitsky in his newly launched news site, El Cohete a la Luna.

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• Carlos Manuel Álvarez strongly recommends a new Netflix documentary, "Cuba and the Cameraman," in a New York Times Español op-ed. The film follows the lives of three families, along with interviews with Fidel Castro, and the long-standing relationship of filmaker Jon Alpert with the island, he writes.