Lima, December 17 (teleSUR-RHC)-- A Peruvian congressional commission introduced its working plan to investigate the links between political parties and illicit activities such as drug trafficking and illegal mining. The commission will go further than investigating political parties and the legislative body by including other institutions of government. Leftist congresswoman Rosa Mavila has been chosen as head of the commission.

Mavila stated: “We are going to investigate not only the media information, but also the judicial, criminal, and police records. We are going to investigate, for example, the possibility that there are candidates or elected authorities processed for drug trafficking crimes. We are going to try follow the route that drug trafficking takes and its presence in the different levels of political office.”

Veronika Mendoza, from the leftist coalition, Broad Front, argued, "It is important to not only investigate the case in depth but also to promote concrete reforms to start reversing this situation."

Ricardo Soberon, from the Drug and Human Rights Research Center, argues that it will be difficult for Congress to investigate itself because of the influence of powerful and dangerous drug traffickers. He maintains that that in Peru drug traffickers do not use violence as much as in Colombia and Mexico. Instead they use more payouts to corrupt authorities, he says.