“In Peru we are experiencing a long-term crisis that will not end soon. Unfortunately, we are going to continue to live in a kind of political swamp”.
With these words, the Peruvian analyst Víctor Caballero synthesizes the political earthquake that shook his country this week and that seems to be, rather, a replica of the acute institutional crisis that Peru for years.
(Also read: Peru: Prosecutor announces sixth investigation against President Pedro Castillo)
At a time when the disapproval of the management of the Peruvian President Pedro Castillostood at 71 percent in August, four points less than last June, according to the survey by the CPI company, the president was peppered with a series of new scandals that even touched his closest family circle.
Castillo added this Thursday a sixth investigation that opened the prosecution for alleged corruption, while the arrest of his sister-in-law Yenifer Paredes raised to five the number of relatives who are under the scrutiny of the authorities.
Hence, Peruvians question how long Castillo will be able to hold out in office, not only because of the judicial investigations against him, but also because of the bid he has been waging for 12 months against a Congress, where the opposition has a majority and which He asked him to resign after being accused by the justice of allegedly directing a criminal organization.
Faced with the political crisis that the president is going through and the complaints of alleged corruption filed against him, 67 percent of Peruvians – according to the ICC survey – believe that the president will not be able to finish his term in 2026, against 24 percent who say they will.
(Also: Why can Pedro Castillo’s sister-in-law destabilize the Peruvian government?)
A little over a year ago, Castillo – a rural teacher whom no one considered the winner – assumed the presidency, and drags with him the crisis of instability in which Peru plunged from 2018, when the resignation of former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski ( PPK) –sprinkled in the Odebrecht scandal– marked a period of political upheaval.
Since then, the country has even seen three presidents parade in less than a month due to parliamentary obstruction that can remove a president for “moral incapacity” and that has been answered, for example in 2020, with the closure of Congress.
“Although the political instability comes from the PPK presidential period, the situation is complicated because Castillo has not managed to stabilize the relationship between the Executive and the Legislative (which insists on removing him from office) and because his Party looks for ways to impose an agenda when it does not have enough votes. And to this are added the investigations of the Prosecutor’s Office against the president, ”explains Caballero.
Although Castillo was saved at the end of March from being dismissed by Congress (the second process of this type against him), at the end of a political trial whose central axis was questions about his poor management (in 12 months he has appointed 59 ministers), now the six investigations of the Prosecutor’s Office against him are added.
(Keep reading: Pedro Castillo denounces media ‘show’ against his family in Peru)
Castillo has not managed to stabilize the relationship between the Executive and the Legislative
In fact, at the end of last week, Castillo changed another six ministers, after his prime minister, Aníbal Torres, unexpectedly resigned. The president did not accept the resignation and as an attempt to reinvigorate his government, he reshuffled the portfolios of Foreign Relations, Economy, Housing and Construction, Labor, Transport and Culture.
But in the opinion of the professor at the Universidad del Pacífico, Andrés Calderón, instability undermines investor confidence and makes governability difficult: “It is the loss of confidence of private investment, which has been in pessimistic sections for several months. That obviously affects employment, the reduction of poverty. Meanwhile, the Government is more concerned with its survival and that leads to problems in public management and investment”.
The Central Bank had to increase reference rates this Friday to its highest level in 2009 to try to cool down inflation, which is around 8.74 percent. And although the figure has been moderating, last April the government had to overcome a series of demonstrations that blocked some main roads due to the rise in fuel prices.
Despite the ministerial changes, since the new head of the Economy portfolio tries to calm investors by saying that confidence must be restored, there are still serious challenges for the Executive to fulfill its promises and with the execution of the ministerial budgets .
“The Government has shown incompetence in public management. In addition, it has ended up disconsolating the popular movement because it has not fulfilled its promises. The president has 500 minutes signed with social movements that he has not been able to carry out due to his inability to manage,” explains Caballero, who emphasizes, for example, that the Ministry of Housing has only executed 30 percent of its budget contemplated for all of 2022. .
(Also: Peru: Government Palace raided to arrest Pedro Castillo’s sister-in-law)
For her part, Claudia Navas, senior analyst at Control Risks, says that “Castillo has reached this situation largely due to his inexperience in politics and public management. He has also lacked the sense of smell to surround himself well. This has affected the country in the lack of a clear political direction, the deterioration of the quality of life and has undermined the confidence of investors”.
And meanwhile, the judicial siege on the president has tightened even more since last Tuesday, when agents raided the government palace in search of Paredes, whom the Prosecutor’s Office accuses of forming a network of corruption and money laundering. That day, however, the authorities did not find Castillo’s sister-in-law, whom he himself raised as a daughter.
Castillo has reached this situation largely due to his inexperience in politics and public management.
The next day, even, the authorities went to the president’s house in the Cajamarca region to find the whereabouts of the woman, but they were not successful either. Hours later, that same Wednesday, Paredes herself turned herself in to the authorities.
The president describes the investigations as an attempt to destabilize his government, and accused the Prosecutor’s Office of carrying out a “media show” to make believe that his family is involved in acts of corruption. “More than a year has passed and there is no evidence, only assumptions,” he added.
For the president, everything is part of a “coup operation”, presumably orchestrated by opposition groups that tried to take power from him.
In contrast, the Prosecutor’s Office, which is autonomous and promotes the mega-investigation of the Odebrecht case that affected four other Peruvian presidents, considers that there is enough evidence to investigate Castillo.
“The Public Ministry has been very harsh with the political class in general in recent years,” says Calderón. In that sense, the analyst Caballero agrees that the Prosecutor’s Office has acted autonomously, mentioning that the main opponent, Keiko Fujimori, also has an open case with the justice system for money laundering. This being the case, Castillo has spent this last year his political capital in dodging the judicial accusations and the impeachment attempts by Congress.
(You can read: Peru: Castillo defends his management against the opposition in his first year in office)
An uncertain future
Regarding what is going to happen to the president and the country, on a legal level, justice cannot take Castillo to court, at least until he remains in office, since he has immunity.
In this sense, Congress could try to approve an initiative to lift presidential immunity and advance the investigations, something unlikely, because it would go against the Constitution.
The other scenario would be that Congress summons a new motion of censure to remove the president, something that is not very clear either, since in the opposition sectors there are still no agreements on this point.
“On the opposition side, I would say that there is a lot of clumsiness, because there is a vocation from many sectors from day one to try to quickly end Castillo’s mandate. They started by not recognizing the result of the elections and there is a lack of sensible leadership. The voices that can be seen as bad losers and persecutors are mixed in an unthinking way, ”says Caballero.
(Keep reading: Scandals and investigations mark first year of Peru’s president)
That, in fact, is one of the points that usually gives the president oxygen. Prime Minister Torres even called this week for mobilizations to close Congress and generate a kind of struggle to achieve popular support for the Government. Something for which the Executive was also asked to investigate for inciting the insurrection.
“In addition to the presidential vacancy, there are several scenarios, including that Castillo resign or leave office seeking refuge in a related government. In any case, the most convenient thing for him is to stay in power as long as possible, because if he were to leave, he would lose presidential immunity,” says Navas, noting that his future will depend on the outcome of the corruption investigations.
(Also read: Peru: the eternal crisis that besieges Pedro Castillo)
What is clear is that the current crisis has all the ingredients to continue to worsen. On the one hand, Congress will continue to fight to suffocate Castillo, while the Executive, far from concentrating on governing, is concentrating on avoiding investigations.
“Eventually, the rope is going to break and I think everything indicates that the outcome will end with some institutional weakening. The crisis of confidence has been slowly cooking”, says Calderón.
CARLOS JOSE REYES GARCIA
INTERNATIONAL SUB-EDITOR
TIME
Twitter @cjrg4
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