LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s new government declared 30-day national emergency on Wednesday amid violent protests following the ouster of President Pedro Castillo.

Peru's new president, Dina Boluarte, pleaded for calm as demonstrations continue against her and the Congress that ousted her predecessor. Answering demands for immediate elections, she suggested they could be held a year from now, four months before her earlier proposal, which placated no one.

“Peru cannot overflow with blood,” Boluarte said as she floated the possibility of sheduling general elections for December 2023 to reporters, just before a hearing to determine whether Castillo will remain jailed for 18 months while authorities build a rebellion case against him. The judge then postponed the hearing because Castillo refused to participate.

“The only thing I can tell you sisters and brothers (is) to keep calm,” Boluarte said. "We have already lived through this experience in the 80s and 90s, and I believe that we do not want to return to that painful history.”

The remarks of Castillo's running mate, installed by Congress just a week ago to replace him, recalled the ruinous years between 1980 and 2000 when the Shining Path insurgency presided over numerous car bombings and assassinations. The group was blamed for more than half of the nearly 70,000 estimated deaths and disappearances caused by various rebel groups and a brutal government counterinsurgency response.