Peru: Pedro Castillo’s promotion is celebrated in Chota | Historic event for the region where the president-elect was born

From Chota

There were festivities until dawn in the town of Chota, in northern Peru. Traditional music, white hats, red and white flags all over the main square. The proclamation of Pedro Castillo as president was received as a historic event in this Andean region, mining, peasant, humble, so far from Lima with its viceroyal sunsets, its chic modernity of Miraflores, San Isidro and Barranco, and the immense desert hills with decades of poverty and migration from the provinces.

Castillo, coming from this Andean north, will take office on July 28. Here is his story as a member of the peasant rounds in the hamlets of San Luis de Puña and after Chugur, a system of Community organization which was born at the end of the 1970s from a need for protection and justice in a Peru forgotten by the State. Also his time as a teacher, then leader of the teaching profession until leading the strike of 2017 which put him on the national screens during this period.

The next president is endowed with great symbolic power. He does not belong to any economic or political elite, he does not talk about his codes, his gestures, his imaginations, which makes him both feared and underestimated by various sectors. He will take office in the year of the bicentenary of independence, under the call for a national overhaul with a Constituent Assembly process.

Neoliberal paradigm

Peru is a complex country, as these weeks have become evident. Neoliberal paradigm, haunted by recent unresolved memories of expropriations, hyperinflations, Shining Path, militarizations, massacres, Fujimori dictatorship, new massacres, vigilante groups, bombs, power cuts, Alberto Fujimori’s flight to Japan, his condemnation for crimes against humanity, betrayals of presidents, such as Ollanta Humala, an uninterrupted political crisis since 2016 pushed by Keiko Fujimori, who destabilized the governments of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Martín Vizcarra, Francisco Sagasti and sought to prevent the proclamation of Castillo.

Castillo will assume marked by the campaign to delegitimize his victory, the need for negotiation developed to obtain the red and white ribbon for the next 28, and to guarantee economic stability as part of a campaign of fear unleashed in the mainstream media. It will have in its favor the great social demand for transformation that triumph has given it, the unity of the left and progressivism, the support of certain movements, such as the rondas and the teaching profession. His call from the presidency to mobilize, to organize, could be decisive, especially in Lima.

There is an international question in this scenario: Why didn’t Washington back Fujimori’s call to prevent Casillo’s victory? An answer may lie in the same figure of Keiko Fujimori, who embodies an authoritarian political current, proven to be corrupt, which, instead of closing the crisis, could have caused it to explode towards a dangerous outlet. Another explanation may lie in a calculation of how far the process of transformation of the Castillo government can go and the possibility of trying to remove it along the way, as has happened in recent years in Peru.

The American policy in the Peruvian case can be considered within the framework of a complex Latin American image. His position is in line with the policy adopted during the April elections in Ecuador, which, at the same time, contrasts with the policy carried out in the Caribbean zone, with the case of Cuba or the policy of double play in Venezuela: by a sur on the one hand, dialogues and a possible agreement, and, on the other hand, the activation of armed actions which, in turn, can be part of the negotiation strategy. How to read this scenario? There are explanations of the internal order of Democratic politics, the influence of the state of Florida, and a policy towards Latin America that does not appear linear.

Unstable stadium

The Latin American scene itself is volatile. Predictions at the start of the year indicated that Correismo had a good chance of winning in Ecuador, and Peru, on the other hand, was difficult for leftists and progressives. The conclusion, in terms of governments, has been reversed. In the case of Chile, a different result also occurred than expected: Gabriel Boric, from Front Large, won the primary last Sunday against Daniel Jadue, of the Communist Party, and will be a candidate in the presidential elections in November.

The government map, which includes for example the next elections in Honduras, Chile, Colombia and Brazil, is decisive in planning the reconstruction of the instruments of integration. However, it does not respond to the way out of the current crisis, at a time that has, among its characteristics, a challenge to neoliberalism expressed in the streets and partly in the ballot boxes at the central level since 2018/2019, at the same time. time than the difficulty of constructing alternatives to this order, in a context of pressing inequalities. There are, yes, memories of what was accomplished, collective wills, and some facts that provide clues to the development patterns needed.

Castillo will take over at this time. The responses in Peru will come from within, with possible mirrors in recent and contemporary processes in Latin America. The right, already announced, will seek to deploy an early offensive for which it installed the story of illegitimacy of its proclamation. For the time being Castillo advances in the conformation of his cabinet, the country is marked by the bicentenary, with national flags on the cars, balconies, squares like that of the city of Chota, under an Andean blue sky, motorcycle taxis at each street corner, organization of the National Meeting of Peasant Rounds and mobilization in Lima for the inauguration next Wednesday.