Pedro Castillo is experiencing his most difficult moment since he became president, which in his case is not saying much. The lack of firmness of the rural teacher against police corruption that his Minister of the Interior had repeatedly warned him about has caused a cascade of resignations in his cabinet that threatens to take him down too. Castillo finds himself more alone than ever.
The last to present her resignation was her right hand, Mirtha Vásquez. It is denounced that the state structure remains hijacked by uncontrolled elements that torpedo corruption investigations. The deep state Peruvian. The prime minister hoped to carry out reforms and changes in the hierarchy to combat these mafias rooted in the heart of the system. Given the president’s lack of action, to whom his collaborators have repeatedly presented evidence of what was happening, Vásquez leaves the Government, which implies a new remodeling of the entire cabinet. The second in just six months.
The instability in which Peru has been immersed for five years has only increased with Castillo. Almost president for a year, the country has not finished finding a political course that can make the necessary reforms. The left-wing leader came to power in an uneventful way due to accusations of fraud at the polls by his rival, Keiko Fujimori, accusations that had no basis, but which made the atmosphere rarefied. Once he took office in the summer of last year, he created a cabinet full of people close to Vladimir Cerrón, the owner of the party with which Castillo came to power. He is about an extremist with retrograde ideas in the social sphere who served as a kind of shadow president.
However, a few months later, the president cut off those close to Cerrón. The tension between them was maximum. So it seemed like a bold blow. It seemed that the professor wanted to fly free. Instead of one of Cerrón’s men, he placed politicians with a more social democratic profile. Among them, Mirtha Vasquez. The Government seemed to take a clear course. The problems, however, have continued. There is no week in which there is not a crisis, a scandal, the resignation of a minister who did something stupid. Although it is true that Peru devours ministers and presidents like no other country in Latin America, even by its standards this situation is excessive.
Castillo saw the wave coming on the horizon since last week, although apparently he did not calculate its size. Interior Minister Avelino Guillén presented her resignation on Friday. Guillén had been confronting the general commander of the police, Javier Gallardo, for a month, who acted on his own and did not answer to the minister. The police chief brought out more than 1,700 experienced agents in key units in the fight against corruption and organized crime. The minister, the prosecutor who imprisoned Alberto Fujimori and Vladimiro Montesinos, thought it was a strategy to reduce the investigative capacity of the body and asked the president for his head. Castillo did not listen to him, he did not even answer the messages to the minister.
The prime minister tried to mediate. She told Castillo that the best thing was to keep Guillén and retire the policeman. Nor did the president act like that, who trusts his advisers more than his ministers. The consequence is that she also leaves and leaves the cabinet at the mercy of a new approval in Congress, the third in half a year. The opposition has tried to blow up the Castillo government from abroad, but there is no doubt that the greatest enemies are from within. Castillo doesn’t seem to need anyone to bring him closer to the abyss, he leans out alone.
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The president communicated on Twitter the remodeling of the Government as if it were his idea. Actually, he makes her forced. Hours earlier, Vásquez had blown everything up. In that time interval, the most solid minister of that Government, the economist Pedro Francke, announced on social networks that he was on the side of those who demand more forcefulness against corruption. Castillo has never been so isolated before. His survival is up in the air.
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