page_title: Congress of the Republic of Peru
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Congress of the Republic of Peru / History
caption_attribution_description: Los ministros de Justicia, Juan Jiménez Mayor, y de Trabajo, José Villena, asistirán hoy martes 6 a las comisiones de Justicia y la de Descentralización. La primera se reunirá a las 14:30 horas (Hemiciclo ‘Raúl Porras Barrenechea’) y la segunda a las 16:30 horas (Sala N°1).
context_page_description: The Congress of the Republic of Peru is the unicameral body that assumes legislative power in Peru.
  The current Congress of Peru, sworn in after the 2020 elections, was elected after the dissolution of the previous Congress by President Martin Vizcarra, triggering the 2019 Peruvian constitutional crisis. Vizcarra issued a decree setting new elections for 26 January 2020. The representatives will serve out the remainder of the original legislative term, set to expire in 2021.
context_section_description: The first Peruvian Congress was installed in 1822 as the Constitutional Congress led by Francisco Xavier de Luna Pizarro. In 1829, the government installed a bicameral Congress, made up by a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. This system was interrupted by a number of times by Constitutional Congresses that promulgated new Constitutions that lasted for a couple of years. The Deputies reunited in the Legislative Palace and the Senators went to the former Peruvian Inquisition of Lima until 1930, when Augusto B. Leguía was overthrown by Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro. He installed a Constitutional Congress (1931–1933) that promulgated the Constitution of 1933. By order of the president, the Peruvian Aprista Party members that were in Congress were arrested for their revolutionary doctrines against the government. When Sánchez Cerro was assassinated in 1933 by an APRA member, General Óscar R. Benavides took power and closed Congress until 1939, when Manuel Prado Ugarteche was elected President. During various dictatorships, the Congress was interrupted by coups d'état. In 1968, Juan Velasco Alvarado overthrew president Fernando Belaúnde by a coup d'état, closing again the Congress.
  The 1979 Constitution was promulgated on July 12, 1979 by the Constitutional Assembly elected following 10 years of military rule and replaced the suspended 1933 Constitution. It became effective in 1980 with the re-election of deposed President Fernando Belaúnde. It limited the president to a single five-year term and established a bicameral legislature consisting of a 60-member Senate (upper house) and a 180-member Chamber of Deputies (lower house). Members of both chambers were elected for five-year terms, running concurrently with that of the president. Party-list proportional representation was used for both chambers: on a regional basis for the Senate, and using the D'Hondt method for the lower house. Members of both houses had to be Peruvian citizens, with a minimum age of 25 for deputies and 35 for senators. At the beginning of the 1990s, the bicameral congress had a low public approval rating. President Alberto Fujimori did not have the majority in both chambers, the opposition lead the Congress, imposing the power that Fujimori had as President. He made the decision of dissolving Congress by a self-coup to his government in 1992.
  Following the self-coup, in which Congress was dissolved, the Democratic Constitutional Congress established a single chamber of 120 members. The Democratic Constitutional Congress promulgated the 1993 Constitution in which gave more power to the President. The new unicameral Congress started working in 1995, dominated by Fujimori's Congressmen that had the majority. The Congress permits a one-year term for a Congressman to become President of Congress.
caption: The Legislative Palace. In front of it, the famous Tadolini's Simon Bolivar statue in the Plaza Bolívar.
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