The president of Peru reaches the first anniversary of his mandate lacking credibility and with serious doubts about whether he will be able to finish his term. The people that raised him to the Government have lost confidence in him
Next Thursday Pedro Castillo will fulfill a year of mandate as president of Peru. You can say that he lasted a year, but there is no one in the Andean country who dares to sign that the town teacher elected by only 44,000 votes more than his rival, Keiko Fujimori, finish the legislature for which he was elected. Castillo knew perfectly well that the path to rule was full of obstacles and many thorns. Not surprisingly, recent history tells that in the last six years, Peru has had five heads of government. They are not as many as the earthquakes that this territory located in the Pacific ring of fire suffers, nor do they reach the figures of sixty ministers that Castillo has changed in eleven months of government.
Quite a record. “I made an appeal to the ministers of State and anticipated them: ‘minister who does not work, has to go to his house,'” Castillo maintains. The last to fall and who has unleashed a new crisis that severely mistreats the credibility of the Executive has been the head of the Interior, Mariano González, the sixth who has held this portfolio, who has barely lasted a couple of weeks in office.
González received his dismissal via social networks, a custom that Castillo has maintained when it comes to accepting resignations or firing members of his Cabinet. But González left sending a barrage of fire on the president. “I have no doubt that Mr. Castillo is committed to acts of corruption” and he added that the president obstructed Justice. “With or without Congress, this man has to go,” said the former minister, for whom his departure from the Government is the beginning of the end of his former boss.
Corruption
The Ombudsman’s Office, at the same time, declared that “the presidential will to fight against corruption has once again been called into question.” Castillo and his entire team have dropped that the dismissal of the Minister of the Interior is due to the fact that he was not committed to the Government. They accuse him of barely attending the council of ministers, but they also threaten him with filing complaints considering that he has not only insulted the president, but also the entire government body.
However, it so happens that González had just formed an elite team to investigate and capture fugitives from Justice who were very close to the president, including his sister-in-law, a businessman and two nephews of Castillo, one of them former Secretary of the Presidency and former Minister of Transport and Communication, which, according to what they say, was the administration with the largest budget.
These alleged cases of corruption have led the Prosecutor’s Office to rescind the provision of January 1 of this year that suspended the initiation of acts of preliminary investigation of the president until the end of his term. At the same time, the nation’s prosecutor announced that a preliminary investigation was beginning against Pedro Castillo for an alleged crime against the Public Administration-Influence Trafficking and that it focuses on the purchase of Biodiesel in favor of the company Heaven Petroleum Operators. SA
Irregular allocations
Also investigated for awarding public works in exchange for bribes, Pedro Castillo has had to overcome a couple of impeachment attempts raised by his opponents in Congress, based on article 113 of the Constitution, which allows the president to be replaced due to his “moral incapacity”. or physical. The first was raised four months after being in power and the second three months later. Both were overcome, taking advantage of the fact that the opposition groups did not gather the necessary signatures.
Castillo has lost credibility. Peru was going to change. The first poor president this country has ever had promised everything in his inaugural speech. Next Thursday, when independence is also celebrated, many are waiting for explanations and greater transparency in his words. “A government of the people has come to govern with the people and for the people,” he said then that day in which he also pointed out that “the pride and pain of deep Peru runs through my veins.” “I will not disappoint you,” he said.
The fact is that today six out of ten people, 60% of Peruvians, believe that inequalities between rich and poor have increased. That the pandemic is very much to blame, but also that there is very unequal access to justice, health, education and work. Castillo is also accused of clumsiness and having many limitations to hold such an important position.
He has had four chiefs of staff: Guido Bellido, Mirtha Vázquez, Héctor Valer and Aníbal Torres. His prime ministers appointed them on July 29, 2021. Three months later he changed to seven. On February 1 he appointed a new cabinet, but it did not pass the vote of confidence in Congress and was dissolved after six days. Of course, there are hardly any mobilizations that force us to think about the collapse of Castillo.
#collapse #castle