Peruvian Elections and Politics: Boluarte era, political crisis continues

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Confidence vote in the Vásquez cabinet is scheduled for today. Castillo is trying to get the cerronistas and the centrist parties to vote yes.

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Vásquez is speaking before Congress now. I’d be listening but I’m in class. After her speech is over there will be three hours of debate, divided by size among the parties. No idea how Perú Libre will allocate its 51 minutes, but if Waldemar Cerrón is the caucus leader…

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So we're at the point where Castillo's own party is trying to undermine him. Just amazing. What a country.

He’s spent all his time sidelining his Vice Presidents and telling the PL left to shut up and get in line, of course there would be pushback.

He only has one Vice President, who is also a minister in his cabinet (under both Bellido and Vásquez). The second Vice Presidency, which would have been occupied by Cerrón, is vacant because Cerrón was excluded from the ticket due to his corruption conviction.

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Waldemar Cerrón, who finished speaking recently, tweeted and deleted a message referring to “17 lambs going into the house of the she-wolf.” Wonder how he’s gonna vote.

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PL congresswoman Silvana Robles saying that the “fascist right” is hypocritical for complaining about the Bellido cabinet and then waffling about whether or not to vote for Vásquez. I’m not sure how the parties are dividing their time (the speaker is just calling on different members individually), but she at least appears to be one of the 17.

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Freddy Díaz of APP: “Madam Prime Minister, if you want to work for the benefit of this country, here we are.” Good sign for Castillo.

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José Williams of Avanza País (Hernando de Soto’s party, perhaps the most Fiscally Conservative (TM) party in congress, big fans of secretly vaccinating themselves in the US) is not a fan of the government.

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Jorge Montoya has the floor for five minutes. I would rather die.

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RP guy #2 is somehow even worse than Montoya: “Protestants are also a persecuted minority”, “support the rights of parents to educate their children”.

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The main criticism that’s coming up of the actual cabinet is focusing on new interior minister Barranzuela, for having been Cerrón’s lawyer and for supporting coca growing (a la Evo).

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AP criticizes Barranzuela as well as the education and production ministers. PM indicates that they will support the government, while SP is more equivocal.

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Speaker is reproaching a fujimorista congressman for saying “under that hat is Sendero” in his speech.

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The session has been suspended. A member apparently just died.

Update: Fernando Mario Herrera Mamani (Perú Libre-Tacna)

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The session has been suspended. A member apparently just died.

Update: Fernando Mario Herrera Mamani (Perú Libre-Tacna)

What the f**k

What happened??

He was attending the session virtually and apparently suffered a cardiac arrest. Congress is now officially in recess until November 4.

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New IEP poll out. You’ll love this one PSOL.

Castillo approval falls to 35-48, driven by a fall from 58% approval to 42% in the south (the left’s political base). On the other hand, 65% of people support confidence in the Vásquez cabinet (up from 56% for Bellido). Vásquez herself is at 41-46 approval as prime minister.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

New IEP poll out. You’ll love this one PSOL.

Castillo approval falls to 35-48, driven by a fall from 58% approval to 42% in the south (the left’s political base). On the other hand, 65% of people support confidence in the Vásquez cabinet (up from 56% for Bellido). Vásquez herself is at 41-46 approval as prime minister.

Is there a reason for his base to be disapproving? Just a sense that he isn't moving fast enough?

I imagine that’s part of it, but also there is a portion of his base represented by the hard-left cerronistas, with whom he (and Boluarte as well) has had a rather public split.*

In other news, Maricarmen Alva is opposing the government’s move to limit the moral incapacity ground for impeachment. Acción Popular does it again, folks (Valentín Paniagua not included).

*Castillo himself hasn’t publicly said anything about intraparty dynamics, but Boluarte is showing signs of distance from Cerrón. She recently published a letter to semi-official presidential advisor Ricardo Belmont that ends “P.S.: I never had a friendship with you”, in response to him accusing her of trying to sabotage Castillo. He’d filed a complaint against her in her capacity as development minister that accused her of funneling money to the El Comercio Group (massive right-wing media conglomerate) in order to promote the idea of a Castillo impeachment, and Cerrón said the accusation “has a congruent logic.” Belmont has since dropped the issue and apologized, and Boluarte hasn’t said anything to or about Cerrón directly, but the tensions are definitely there.

(None of that is particularly relevant for now, but I thought it’d be interesting to note given that she’s the single most likely future president. She’s also being investigated as part of the Cerrón corruption/money laundering scandal, which has grown to encompass the Peru Libre leadership in general.)

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

New IEP poll out. You’ll love this one PSOL.

Castillo approval falls to 35-48, driven by a fall from 58% approval to 42% in the south (the left’s political base). On the other hand, 65% of people support confidence in the Vásquez cabinet (up from 56% for Bellido). Vásquez herself is at 41-46 approval as prime minister.

Is there a reason for his base to be disapproving? Just a sense that he isn't moving fast enough?

When you alienate the two pillars of your party and shift to become indistinguishable from how the center right governs, of course your base will bail on you.

I’d argue Cerrón’s faction is less distinguishable from the right, since they’re the ones promoting a no confidence vote along with RLA and fujimorismo. And the two pillars of Peru Libre are Cerrón and the teacher’s unions, the latter of which is still squarely behind Castillo.

Anyway, we’ll see how Castillo deals with the social conflicts that have sprung up in the past few days in the so-called “Antamina Corridor” and other mining areas.

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Interior minister Luis Barranzuela is under fire for having a clandestine house party on October 31 (for Creole Song Day, of course - what else?). Legislators from various parties (including the pro-Castillo faction of PL) have called for him to be sacked and Vásquez has said his response to her in private was “inadequate”.

Re: the Antamina conflict, which centers on the Antamina mining company’s exploits in various towns in Áncash, mainly Aquia where the protests are being held and where they have blocked off the operation of the mine for over a week. The energy and mining minister met with the CEO of Antamina in Lima several days ago, over the protests of community leaders who wanted Castillo himself to come to Aquia. Several other anti-mining blockades in Ayacucho were recently lifted after Castillo traveled there to meet with protesters.

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Barranzuela has resigned (without admitting any wrongdoing) and the mining blockade in Aquia has been lifted temporarily for the locals to negotiate with Antamina. Thank you flawless beautiful President Castillo.

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Confidence vote is today. Avelino Guillén, who led the legal case for crimes against humanity against Alberto Fujimori in 2008 and served on Castillo’s campaign team, has been named the new interior minister,

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Vásquez cabinet has passed the confidence vote, with 68 votes in favor and 56 against. Fuerza Popular, Juntos por el Perú, the Partido Morado, and Acción Popular (which has an odd democratic centralist trend of voting unanimously despite being a very divided party in general) were the only parties to vote unanimously (Acción Popular voted for the cabinet).

Perú Libre split almost evenly, with 19 members voting for and 16 against. APP mostly voted in favor, thanks largely to Barranzuela’s resignation yesterday, with two dissenters. Avanza País voted 6-3 against and Renovación Popular voted 6-2 against. Somos Peru and Podemos Perú voted 6-1 in favor.

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For context, approximately 50% of the total population is fully vaccinated at this point, and the health ministry has only recently made all adults eligible. Minors above 12 I believe are beginning soon.

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The Foreign Ministry officially condemns yesterday’s electoral-type event in Nicaragua, saying it “did not fulfill minimum criteria for free, fair, and transparent elections”. In other news, defense minister Walter Ayala resigned after recent revelations that he had irregularly promoted a friend of Castillo’s sons. Presidential advisor Bruno Pacheco is also implicated.

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The irregular promotions scandal is growing, with Castillo meeting with the heads of the different branches of the armed forces today. He hasn’t officially accepted the defense minister (Ayala)’s resignation yet.

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Castillo gave a speech in Ayacucho outlining highlights from his first 100 days: Camisea gas nationalization/redistribution and the continued vaccination campaign are the main achievements he highlighted, and he proposed a vague “second agrarian reform” and increasing access to water and the Internet in poor and rural areas, as well as the classic selling the presidential airplane. He also projected that schools will return to in-person learning by March 2022.

In other news, Martín Vizcarra is about to launch a new party called “Perú Primero”. Why he has abandoned Somos Perú, with which he would be a Congressman but for his removal from the ballot due to corruption allegations, is unclear to me.