The Pedro Castillo enigma: a teacher descended from the mountains, among the ghosts of Hugo Chávez and Alberto Fujimori

Pedro Castillo is the piece of an enigma to put together. The rural master of the highlands of central Peru descends to the coast to rule Peru. A figure of Andean magical realism by the extraordinary writer Manuel Scorza. And that like his “Garabombo, the invisible” we don’t know where to be. “He was imbued with a power that conquered the wind, the mountains, the stars. Now I will be invisible! I will cross the villages, I will enter the houses, I will walk in the passages. No one will distinguish me! In vain they will place guards. Neither the checkpoints, nor the compadres, nor the spies will be worth the trouble ”. Castillo appears and disappears as Garabombo as he flies over the most remote areas of the elites and now, suddenly, he lands on the Palace of Pizarro de Lima. A ghost to reveal. Is he a revolutionary who will turn the country into an untimely Soviet or a simple man who just wants his people to have a better life? As with Scorza’s novel, it will be necessary to arrive at the end of the book to find out who the real Garabombo is.

In the meantime, we know he’s a complicated man. is defined as socialist, populist and conservative on social issues. His party, Free Peru, is defined as “Marxist-Leninist-Marianist.” He said that he will appoint an adviser with the credentials of a “liberal” as Minister of the Economy. He believes that Venezuela has a “democratic government”. He announced that he will respect mining investments. But he warned them that he would “70% of the profits remain for the country and take 30%, and not the other way around as is the case today ”. He also said he would respect press freedom as much as possible, but demanded stricter regulation of the media. It was expressed cagainst the gender approach in school programs for students, the legalization of abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage.

He was born in the town of Puña, in the Sierra de Cajamarca, in 1969. He is the third of nine siblings. At that time, his father benefited from the agrarian reform of General Juan Velazco Alvarado and obtained a plot for the maintenance of the family. In a recent interview, Castillo said that being very young it was “rondero” from your region. He was referring to the peasant self-defense patrols that confronted the Maoist extremists of the Shining Path. In 1995 he graduated from teaching and began to practice the profession, married another teacher and they have two children. He soon became a representative of his guild and became a union figure with an extended teachers’ strike in 2017. The president at the time, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, intervened, which started negotiations, but excluded the representatives of the bases led by Castillo, to “be linked to the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (MOVADEF)”, a reference to the remains of the Luminous Path in the mountainous region. Castillo denied it and gave his participation in the tours as an example.

In 2002, he ran for municipal elections for the party of the former president. Alejandro Toledo, Peru Possible. And he was a member of this center-left party for 12 years, until his membership was suspended. He became an extra-partisan union leader many wanted to “sign” for their team. He finally succeeded Vladimir Cerrón, neurosurgeon, former governor of the Junín region between 2011 and 2014 re-elected five years later until the regional assembly revokes him for Corruption. He is accused of fostering a “friendly consortium” in a cleanup job that has never been done. He is sentenced to three years in prison. This prevented him from being a candidate, but he founded a new “Peru Free” party and convinced Castillo to be a candidate. In the first round, they got 18% of the voteBut, given the general fragmentation, they went to the second round with Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the former dictator who remains in prison for his crimes.

Cerrón is considered “Rasputin” by Castillo, the real “power in the shadows”. The man who is about to assume the presidency of Peru assures that no one dominates him and that “I will be the one to rule”. Cerrón has complicated references: he trained as a doctor in Cuba, lived on the island for eleven years and is married to a Cuban, he declares himself a great admirer of Fidel Castro, as well as of Hugo Chávez and of Nicolás Maduro. Keiko Fujimori’s campaign denounced him as “Cuban secret service agent” although there is no evidence in this regard beyond some political links with officials of the current dictator Miguel Díaz Canel. Yes, he is close to Evo Morales and many compare his protege, Castillo, and call him “The Peruvian Evo”.

Augusto Álvarez Rodrich, influential journalist, columnist and former editor of the newspaper Peru 21Ironically, he says that “some people say that what Castillo would do would be some sort of chavismo in Peruvian, I do not agree. I think it’s going to be a Chavismo but not from Hugo Chávez, but from a chavismo from Chavo del Ocho”. Many in Lima and the rest of the Peruvian coast are convinced of this. His peasant silhouette with his large white hat makes him “A living meme.” He does not have a university degree. He has only traveled abroad twice and both have been to Bolivia. He doesn’t know anything about economics. His entire political imprint is based in his union experience and in his sensitivity this allows him to understand this deep Peru which had never before had a significant representation in the centers of power.

Carlos Meléndez, Peruvian political scientist, columnist and researcher at Diego Portales University, explains it as follows: an anti-system outsider. What happened with Fujimori in the 1990 elections is now happening again with Pedro Castillo. This is what we see: a gap between those who defend the status quo and those who want change that this affair has a connotation of constitutional modality, that the constitutional debate is under discussion in this campaign ”. His colleague Álvarez Rodrich shares this analysis: “The comparison is absolutely valid and relevant. The phenomena which then arose were repeated. In 1990, there was a social aspect, that is to say terrorism, where 70,000 people died according to the records of the Truth Commission. Today, with the pandemic, at least 180,000 people died. We are the country with the highest per capita death rate from the pandemic. And it produces a lot of confusion and a search for immediate, almost magical change. Someone coming from outside and fixing the mess it doesn’t matter who it is ”.

The situation in Peru, like that of much of Latin America, would need more statesmen than “magical realism paratroopers”. The pandemic has generated a brutal economic crisis. A collapse where last year’s GDP fell by 11.3%, one of the biggest depreciations in the world. There was a loss of 2 million 200 thousand formal jobs and no view can be recovered. It all adds up to the already widespread informality characteristic of the Peruvian economy. Poverty has increased by 10%. There are 3.3 million Peruvians who have become poor in one year and the middle class has grown from 46% to 34% In that same year. One third of the population is below all levels of poverty. There is a health, social, economic and political crisis.

The famous “Market thermometer” indicates hell fever. The Lima stock exchange fell 7% and they had to shut it down to avoid further harm. Already during the campaign, when Castillo’s silhouette began to grow, 75% of short-term investments have been suspended private companies in the country. The mistrust observed in the indicators is very high. “The most important signal Castillo should show right now is who is going to occupy positions such as the Central Bank, the Ministry of the Economy, the President of the Council of Ministers, the Constitutional Court”, comments the analyst Álvarez Rodrich. “These will be very clear signs of the direction the government is taking. And as in Peru we have such weak institutions, everything works with the people. I remember when Ollanta Humala was elected president the next day, the stock market fell 12% and the stock market closed. The next day he said “my President of the Central Bank is Julio Valverde and my Minister of the Economy is Mr. Luis Miguel Castila”. Everyone understood what it was about and everything was set up. We will see what are the signs that are given in this direction, but so far things are not very clear”.

We are at the era of global uncertainty. And the wandering train now stopped at Lima station. Castillo is the driver of the convoy. Cerrón is the guard who cuts the tickets. The passengers are 32 million Peruvians. And among them, surely, is a Garabombo like the one imagined by Scorza, the one who shouted in the novel: “I am made of smoke!” He felt it dissolve. And he laughed with a laugh so formidable that the beasts of the night interrupted his love, his work, his labor ”. He will need this Andean magical realism to rule.

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