Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski offered to resign on Wednesday after vote-buying allegations ensnared his center-right government on the eve of an impeachment vote, capping months of political turmoil in one of Latin America’s most stable economies, according to Reuters.
Kuczynski, a 79-year-old former Wall Street banker who once held U.S. citizenship, promised a constitutional and orderly transition of power and blamed his departure on the opposition’s persistent efforts to depict him as corrupt.
“The best for the country is that I resign as president of the republic, because I don’t know want to be an obstacle for the nation’s search for a path to unity and harmony,” Kuczynski said in a pre-recorded speech that was televised after he departed the presidential palace in a car.
Even some of his staunchest defenders called for him to step down, although opposition lawmakers signaled they might not accept his resignation.
“He’s facing serious corruption allegations,” Daniel Salaverry, the spokesman of the biggest party in Congress, said on local broadcaster RPP. “He didn’t even offer explanations, much less apologize.”
Popular Force started releasing a stream of secret recordings on Tuesday that appeared to show Kuczynski’s allies offering a lawmaker lucrative public work contracts in exchange for help in defeating a second impeachment vote.
Kuczynski said the recordings were part of a malicious campaign to depict him as corrupt that started shortly after he took office. He stressed that no corruption allegation had been proven