Peru: Pedro Castillo’s cabinet risks its future in Congress | A month after the investiture of the presidency of the left-wing rural teacher

From Lima

Left-wing President Pedro Castillo’s first ministerial cabinet, who took office a month ago, is playing its future in Congress. Thursday evening, after a marathon debate to grant or refuse the cabinet vote of confidence, The session in Parliament was suspended to continue this Friday. If the 130-member unicameral Congress denies him confidence, Castillo would suffer a heavy defeat and would have to appoint another cabinet. The ruling party has only 42 votes, it needs the support of at least one sector of the right-wing opposition. Speeches by representatives of Fujimori and two other far-right parties, totaling 43 votes, were in the tone of their destabilizing behavior and announced a vote against the cabinet. Four benches going from center to right will have voices that tip the scales to one side or the other. In their speeches, many lawmakers from these groups criticized the cabinet but were unclear on what their vote would be, others said they would give it confidence and others they would deny it. If the cabinet confidence vote is denied, it would be the first time this has happened at the start of a government.

The cabinet vote of confidence came amid a strong campaign from the right and the hegemonic press demanding changes of ministers, demanding the departure of the President of the Council of Ministers, the deputy in power Guido Bellido, considered part of the leftmost wing of government. A few days ago, yielding to pressure from the right, the government changed chancellor, the former guerrilla and sociologist Héctor Béjar, but the opposition demands more changes of ministers. The right which lost the elections tries to impose the ministers on the government. There is an extreme right, led by Fujimori, which goes further and conspires to remove the president.

in quechua

During the parliamentary session, around the Congress there were mobilizations for and against the government. Before going to the Congress, the ministers met at the Government Palace with President Castillo. Of Andean origin, Bellido began to speak in front of the parliamentary representation in Quechua. Cries of protest were heard from the opposition seats. With this gesture, Bellido began to speak in his mother tongue at President Castillo’s Andean electoral bases, and underlined the disconnection of the political class, who protested because the chief of staff spoke in Quechua, with these indigenous populations. After several minutes of confusion among the majority of members of Congress, the President of the Legislative Assembly, María del Carmen Alva, of the center-right Popular Action Party, asked Bellido to speak in Spanish because lawmakers did not understand him . The chief of staff did so and spoke about the marginalization of the millions of Peruvians in the Andes who speak Quechua and all indigenous peoples.

Bellido exhibited for almost three hours. He announced a series of projects and goals for each sector. A conciliator, he said the government wanted to build bridges with the opposition-controlled Congress and called for the vote of confidence as “a vote for reconciliation”. “Today, I have not only come to the hemicycle to ask for a vote of confidence, but I am here to invite you to put down our differences and to contribute together to resolve one of the political, social, environmental and most serious health problems of the last decades “, he underlined, in front of a parliamentary representation of majority opposition, and largely hostile to the government. His message was centered on the need for changes and public policies in favor of the sectors most serious. more excluded.

As Castillo once did, the chief of staff emphasized the offer to prioritize issues such as education and health, and announced the increase in the budget of these two sectors, underfunded and abandoned under different governments. He recalled that 30 percent of Peruvians, that is to say more than nine million people, survive in poverty and that 74 percent of the economically active population works informally with low incomes and without human rights. job. He underlined the government’s will to close the great economic and social gaps, which he described as “a tragedy caused by the political class to defend its interests”. He offered to collect the demands of the labor sectors. He ratified that taxes on extractive companies, which now have large surpluses due to rising international mineral prices, will be increased.

Accused by the right of having sympathies for the heirs of the Maoist armed group Sendero Luminoso, defeated more than two decades ago, Bellido assured that the government will initiate “a frontal fight against terrorism and drug trafficking”.. Only one armed column of Sendero remains in a rugged mountainous region, which years ago broke with the original trekking defeated and now acts in alliance with the drug smuggling that operates in this region, but the right continues to ‘use this ghost to frighten, promote authoritarian policies and seek to discredit the left as a whole by linking it to the hike. This is what he did to try to weaken the Castillo government. Several lawmakers have repeated the accusations of the campaign against Bellido and other ministers of having assumed a proximity to these Senderista delays.

Bellido did not raise the question of the convening of a Constituent Assembly to modify the neoliberal Constitution resulting from the dictatorship of Fujimori, the main campaign flag of President Castillo. It was the great absence of his message, which was interpreted as an attempt to lower tensions with an opposing majority opposing the constitutional change.

In the Peruvian political system, in crisis for years, Congress has the right to censor ministers and each ministerial cabinet, once appointed, is obliged to ask the Legislative Assembly for a vote of confidence to be ratified.. As a counterweight, the president is empowered to dissolve Congress and call new parliamentary elections if the confidence of two cabinets is denied, a possibility that would motivate several government critics to give the cabinet a vote of confidence so as not to be so soon. on the verge of dissolution. In this complicated relationship of powers, the legislator can dismiss the head of state, even appealing to an ambiguous cause of “moral incapacity” which can be applied in summary proceedings with two-thirds of the votes. Far-right banks demand the impeachment of President Castillo through this channel and conspire to add support and get the votes they need. The rejection of the vote of confidence in the cabinet would strengthen these putschist groups.