From Lima
The crisis in the government worsens peter castle. Less than a month after the rural teacher and trade unionist who came to power as a left-wing candidate completes his first year in office, the right, which from the first day of the government has bet on the coup, accelerates its plans to remove him and assault power from the Congress he controls. The instability of the government is accentuated by the destabilizing maneuvers of the right, which has the support of the big media in its coup plans, but also by the responsibility of a presidential administration that has distanced itself from its proposals for change, it wanders in ineffectiveness and lack of direction, it is dotted with allegations of corruption, it adds errors and failed appointments, and it is weakened from within by sectarian attitudes and divisions in the ruling party.
In a new offensive against the government, the parliamentary right seeks to disqualify the president and the vice president, Dina Boluarte, removing them from their positions in order to seize power. If both fall, the head of the government would be assumed by whoever holds the presidency of Congress at that time -now the position is in the hands of the Popular Action party legislator María del Carmen Alvavery close to Fujimorism and other far-right sectors, although in the last week of this month the board of directors of Parliament must be renewed, which will undoubtedly remain in the hands of the right-, with which the coup promoted by the extreme right it would be consummated.
As part of that plan, a few days ago the Congress Oversight Commission, chaired by the fujimorista Hector Venturaapproved a report that accuses Castillo of constitutional infraction for refusing to testify before that commission in a corruption investigation, and for the meetings that he held at the beginning of his term in a friend’s home outside the official agenda and without reporting those meetings. The accusation indicates that in those meetings there were meetings with businessmen who later won tenders. Videos show the lobbyist Karelim Lopez, investigated judicially for her intervention in the tender to build a bridge in which the payment of bribes has been denounced, entering the house where Castillo received visitors. The president denies that both have coincided in that place. The report of this parliamentary commission indicates that Castillo would head a criminal organization to direct the delivery of public works tenders. The president denies the charges. The parliamentary commission admits in its report that it has no evidence of Castillo’s guiltbut only indications and suspicions that must be investigated – they are already being investigated in the prosecution -, but he still jumps to accuse him.
Treason
Before this accusation, another constitutional accusation was presented in Congress against the president for the absurd charge of treason for having declared in a journalistic interview his sympathy with facilitating a trip to the sea to Bolivia, a declaration in which there was no mention of ceding sovereignty and that did not lead to any government decision. An accusation that reveals the desperation of the right to find any reason to remove Castillo.
The coup right knows that it does not have the 87 votes -two thirds of the unicameral Parliament of 130 members- to remove Castillo alleging “moral incapacity”, something that it has already tried twice without success, that is why it now resorts to the strategy of the accusation for an alleged constitutional infraction to disqualify him from office and remove him from the presidency. To approve the constitutional accusation, 87 votes are not required, but only a simple majority of 66 votes, which the ultra-right wing led by Fujimorism, which promotes the parliamentary coup, hopes to achieve in this new case. The risk for Castillo of that happening is high.
Boluarte in sight
If she manages to remove Castillo, the right wing needs to get rid of the vice president as well in order to take power. That is why Boluarte has been charged with a constitutional accusation accusing her of having held a position on the board of the Apurímac Departmental Club, which brings together migrants from that region who live in Lima, as is her case, when she was Minister of Development and Social Inclusion. the Constitution prohibits a minister from holding any other office except teaching. The vice president defends herself by pointing out that when she was appointed minister she resigned from her duties in the aforementioned club and that the subsequent steps she took were exclusively for administrative regularization to transfer her position. What counts in Congress is not the arguments, but the strength of the votes and the obsessive desire of the right to overthrow the Castillo government.
While the right advances in the objective of closing the circle of the parliamentary coup, the ruling party is divided. The general secretary of the ruling party Peru Libre (PL), Vladimir Cerrón publicly demanded that Castillo resign from the party, accusing him of acting to break up the official caucus to form his own political group and of not fulfilling campaign promises. Under threat from Cerrón, Castillo resigned this week from PL. The PL bench has had successive divisions in this first year of government. Of the 37 parliamentarians with whom the government began, only 16 legislators remain faithful to Cerrón in PL. The resignations have dispersed, forming other groups that support the government. Castillo promotes the formation of a new party, the Teachers’ Party.
enclose
The break between Cerrón and PL with Castillo became evident this week when Cerronista parliamentarians voted together with the right to censure the Minister of the Interior, Dimitri Senmache, who has been forced to leave office less than two months after taking office. He was accused, without evidence, of having allowed the escape of the former Minister of Transport Juan Silva and a nephew of Castillo, investigated judicially and with a preventive detention order on charges of corruption in public works tenders. Senmache is the fourth minister censured by Congress in less than a year in office.
Cerrón plays leftist radicalism, but on more than one occasion he has become an ally of the parliamentary far right, adding his votes to the approval of ultraconservative norms against gender equality policies and now to actions to weaken the government. Cerrón’s sectarianism has blocked government alliances with other progressive sectors that would have strengthened him and has decisively contributed to his isolation. The general secretary of PL wanted the government only for his party, and now that he has lost positions in the Executive, he takes Castillo out of PL and votes together with the coup plotters to dismiss a minister, which has been a heavy blow to the government. Cerronismo’s votes against the Interior Minister are a warning to Castillo of what could happen to him if he doesn’t give in to his pressure to give Cerrón and PL more power.
weakened
The president is left more isolated and weakened – a process that seems to be advancing hopelessly – while the right pushes from Congress the accelerator of its coup planswhich threatens not only Castillo, but democracy if that extreme right achieves its objective of capturing all the power