To analyse. One could suspect that Pedro Castillo, the Peruvian president of left, would not go to the end of his mandate. We did not know, however, that he would end it this way, alone, accused of rebellion after a failed coup attempt on December 7, and locked up in the same prison as his distant predecessor Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000 ).
Badly elected, with 19% of the votes in the first round, on April 11, 2021, among seventeen other candidates, then with only 50,000 votes ahead of Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the former president, in the second, on June 6 , inexperienced, without a majority, Pedro Castillo was, during the seventeen months of his mandate, an incompetent head of state. Five governments and eighty ministers succeeded one another. And, while he presented himself as the candidate for the break, six corruption investigations were opened against him.
But he was also hampered by the right-wing opposition, pouring on him waves of hatred and racism, the elites not supporting that a simple teacher from the Andes walks on their flowerbeds. He was never really able to govern, to the point that the Organization of American States had, on 1er December, asked for a “truce” hundred days to the various political forces.
On Wednesday, December 7, he faced the third attempt by Congress to impeach him. Nobody expected him to try everything for everything: to dissolve the Congress, denouncing the obstruction of parliamentarians and the “Congress Dictatorship”. In three hours, Pedro Castillo is let go by his ministers, by the army and by his own bodyguards, who arrest him as he tries to take refuge in the Mexican embassy. The Congress meets, easily obtaining the two-thirds of the votes necessary for his dismissal.
The same day, its vice-president, Dina Boluarte, barely had time to be invested when the first demonstrations broke out. The protesters demand his resignation, the dissolution of Congress and the organization of general elections. Some are calling for the return of Pedro Castillo, who treats Mme boluarte of“usurper”.
Emergency state
The Peruvians of the Andes, who had massively voted for him, seized airports, set up roadblocks. The elites of Lima call them “vandals”of “terrorists” who defend a putschist. Police repression is violent, the state of emergency established, the police and the army fire live ammunition. At least twenty-six dead are to be deplored.
An unforgivable coup; unacceptable repression. Peru is torn apart. Pedro Castillo’s coup is only the ultimate manifestation of the incompetence and decadence of the entire Peruvian political class. All his predecessors for thirty-two years, with the exception of two, are either in prison or indicted for corruption. The Odebrecht affair, named after the Brazilian construction company that paid bribes to many Latin American leaders, has further discredited Peruvian leaders.
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