Lima: The rightwing opposition party that controls Peru’s Congress said it wants President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to resign by the end of Thursday and allow Vice President Martin Vizcarra replace him, the party’s spokesman said.

Daniel Salaverry, the spokesman for the Popular Force party, told a press conference that Kuczynski could no longer hold office after Brazilian builder Odebrecht reported having transferred $4.8 million to companies linked to him.

Kuczynski has previously denied any links to Odebrecht. On Wednesday, he denied wrongdoing but did not deny the transfers took place.

Cabinet members were shocked to learn on Wednesday about payments construction firm Odebrecht said it had made a decade ago to a company controlled by Kuczynski, said the sources. The president had repeatedly denied having any ties to Odebrecht, which is at the center of the biggest ever graft scandal in Latin America.

Key ministers as well as lawmakers within Kuczynski’s center-right party did not think Kuczynski had any hope of surviving the scandal and want him to step down, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

A spokeswoman for Kuczynski denied that he had lost any support. ‘That’s false,’ she said.

Kuczynski, a 79-year-old former Wall street banker who was narrowly elected last year, has denied any improper earnings and offered to explain the matter to Congress.

‘There are a lot of rumors,’ Kuczynski said early on Thursday in a speech at a military ceremony, without directly addressing the Odebrecht disclosure. ‘We need to unite together against real obstacles.’

The rightwing opposition party that controls Congress, Popular Force, demanded that Kuczynski tender his resignation by the end of Thursday as a leftist party prepared a motion to remove him from office. The two parties together control 82 seats in Congress. Eighty seven votes would be needed to impeach the president.

Kuczynski summoned his Cabinet to his house in the upscale district of San Isidro late on Thursday to discuss next steps, the sources said. Before the meeting started Kuczynski had expressed hope that he could calm the crisis by speaking publicly on his links to Odebrecht, they added.

Odebrecht sent Peru’s Congress a report this week in which it detailed payments totaling $4.8 million to a company Kuczynski controlled while he held public office and to a firm headed by a close friend and business associate.

As recently as last month, Kuczynski strenuously denied ever taking any money from Odebrecht or having any professional links to the company.

A source in the attorney general’s office said it had summoned Kuczynski to explain the payments to prosecutors next week, which the source said may have violated laws against money laundering.

Odebrecht has admitted to paying about $30 million in bribes to officials in Peru over a decade, including during the 2001-2006 term of President Alejandro Toledo, when Kuczynski was finance minister and prime minister.

The escalating political instability has spooked markets in the world’s No.2 copper producer and one of the region’s most stable economies. Peru’s sol currency closed 0.31 per cent weaker against the dollar and the select stock index dropped 3.5 per cent.