From Lima
In a vote held just before midnight on Monday, President Pedro Castillo was saved from a second attempt by the parliamentary opposition to remove him, accusing him of “moral incapacity.” He obtained this victory the day his government was eight months old. Last December he had been successful in a first impeachment process for the same reason. The extreme right returned to the attack to overthrow him and again lost. 87 votes of the 130 members of the unicameral Congress were needed to remove the president. The coup was far from that figure, it obtained only 55 votes. There were 54 against and 19 abstentions. As soon as the result of the vote was announced, the ruling party celebrated this victory that saved the government by chanting in the hemicycle the classic “the people united will never be defeated.” His spokespersons described the failure of the request for the removal of the president as “a victory for democracy”. The extreme right-wing putschist withdrew bitterly chewing on his new defeat.
less votes
The promoters of the express political trial with which it was intended to remove from the presidential the rural teacher and left-wing trade unionist who in 2021 defeated the right and displaced it from power knew that getting 87 votes was difficult, but they were convinced that they would obtain more support which they finally received. They hoped to display a high vote as a show of force. They failed. With the 43 votes of the three far-right benches as a base, two weeks ago they had managed to add other legislators and reached 76 votes to bring Castillo before Congress as a defendant. They expected to raise that figure, but the opposite happened. A good part of the center-right that had supported launching the summary impeachment process decided to distance themselves from the coup. The different center-right groups were divided in the vote, some legislators continued to support the coup, but most abstained and others added their votes to the 44 that the ruling party has. Having had a significantly lower vote than it had obtained two weeks ago has meant a double defeat for the extreme right.
“I salute that good sense, responsibility and democracy have prevailed. I recognize the parliamentarians who voted against the vacancy (removal), and I respect the decision of those who did (in favor). I call on everyone to close this page and work together for the country’s great challenges,” Castillo reacted. upon learning of the result of the vote in Congress that keeps him in the presidency. He did so through a Twitter message sent minutes after the parliamentary session ended.
“Congress has to understand that the country is above political confrontation,” Castillo said Tuesday during a trip to the interior of the country. But he was not optimistic that this would happen. “I understand that this small group, which has not achieved its mission, is going to follow its own agenda,” The president warned in reference to the extreme right that failed in its attempt to remove him from the presidency.
The coup agenda
Despite this new defeat, everything indicates that the exclusive agenda of the extreme right will continue to be the overthrow of Castillo. Before the vote that rejected the impeachment of the president, sensing his defeat, the congressman Jorge Montoyaa retired admiral from the fascist Popular Renovation party and one of the most visible faces of the parliamentary coup, launched a threat that leaves no doubt: “If the votes are not obtained (to remove Castillo), we will see what the alternative path is.” .
asked by Page 12 on the political effect of the defeat of this new attempt by Congress to impeach Castillo, the sociologist and university professor Sinesio López points out that “this result gives the government some breathing room, some calm.” “Castillo and the center-right win -he points out- while the extreme right that has lost remains relatively isolated but together with the oligopolistic media they will continue with the issue of Castillo’s vacancy. For the extreme right, the problem is not the inefficiency of Castillo, the lack of transparency or the alleged corruption, for them the underlying problem is that the president is a different person from them and they do not tolerate that. The Peruvian Creole elite is one of the worst in Latin America, they only accept alternation in government if it is between them. The center-right is going to continue to be in a dispute between the government and the extreme right to win it over to their side.”
“Castillo -says López- must take advantage of this respite that he has received to correct errors, hire more qualified people, propose some fundamental reforms, such as tax, agrarian, productive diversification, emphasize improving health and education, a political reform that includes primary elections, change the party system. It is difficult for the government to return to the original plan of changes, I believe that it has no other alternative than to reduce itself to a minimum program of changes because it is against the daily, systematic offensive of the extreme right and the monopolistic press and it needs the support of the center right , with whom he must talk to make fundamental reforms. If Castillo consolidates a minimum program of economic changes and goes for a political reform, he can give his government some stability.”
source of instability
The practice of summary removal of the president for “moral incapacity”, used unsuccessfully against Castillo, has been a source of instability in recent years. Peter Paul Kuczynski He resigned in March 2018, less than two years after assuming the presidency, when it was certain that he would lose a vacancy process in Congress due to “moral incapacity.” Three months earlier he had been saved from a first attempt to remove him. his successor, Martin Vizcarra, was dismissed for this reason in November 2020, two months after escaping from a first trial for “moral incapacity”. Vizcarra’s dismissal triggered massive protests and his replacement, the right-wing legislator Manuel Merino, had to resign just five days after assuming the presidency. In just eight months of the Castillo government, the impeachment attempt for “moral incapacity” has already been used twice.
Castillo has obtained a momentous victory in Congress that has saved his continuity in the presidency, but his government, weakened by the relentless war that the political and media right has declared against him, and by his own mistakes, continues to be exposed to instability. The extreme right has been defeated again, but it will not give up its war against the government.