Peruvian Elections and Politics: Boluarte era, political crisis continues

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

PL party Congress is going on rn. Hopefully some time soon after it’s finished we should have the cabinet ready (although Cevallos in health is all but confirmed, Najar looks strong for PM, and Francke still seems the most likely for finance).

What are Cevallos, Najar, and Francke like?

Najar is Cerrón’s professed candidate for PM, PL guy since the party’s founding and formerly of UPP (but not the etnocacerista version, more the Humala pre-hoja de ruta version). He spent a long time trying to get out of paying child support to the daughter he had with a 14-year-old.

WTF ? Shouldn't he be breaking big rocks into smaller rocks in a prison somwehre instead of running for PM ?

He ought to be doing something of that nature, but he didn’t violate the age of consent laws and the paternity/child support issue was legally settled.

[jaichind]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/emerging-markets-perus-sol-bonds-144654219.html

"EMERGING MARKETS-Peru's sol, bonds hit as no finance minister named; Mexican peso rise on GDP"

ETFs tracking Peru markets are down 5%

Peru equity funds recorded their biggest outflow in more then eight years this week, according to EPFR Global data.

[Flyersfan232]

Felipe IV seem to get invited to a lot of inaugurations in southern America tradition to invite the Spanish monarchs?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Felipe IV seem to get invited to a lot of inaugurations in southern America tradition to invite the Spanish monarchs?

Apparently AMLO’s was the first one he attended, but he’s done a lot since then. If I had to guess, it could be because he’s more easily seen as representing the state, so it’s not seen as as much of a political gesture as it might be for an executive president or prime minister.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Apparently Castillo and Bellido have finally convinced Francke to join the cabinet, as well as Aníbal Torres at Justice, who had led Castillo’s legal team admirably during the post-election challenges. Both had been at the ceremony last night but left empty-handed.

[warandwar]

Update 2: Bellido is currently being formally investigated for apology for terrorism after making comments in support of Sendero leader Edith Lagos and saying that Sendero members “wrongly took a path” because “the country was in a disaster”.

Update 3: Virulently homophobic. Sadly Chabelita Cortez (popular JP congresswoman and former sanitation worker) is still defending him.

Bellido is certainly homophobic but what he said about Sendero 1) is literally true and 2) in no way is apologizing or supporting them. 18 year olds are not the main bad actors here and it is 110% true that rural Peeu was completely ignored at the time (which allowed SL's rise). It's silly to these those Joe Biden is BLM/Antifa level right wing smears published in English.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Update 2: Bellido is currently being formally investigated for apology for terrorism after making comments in support of Sendero leader Edith Lagos and saying that Sendero members “wrongly took a path” because “the country was in a disaster”.

Update 3: Virulently homophobic. Sadly Chabelita Cortez (popular JP congresswoman and former sanitation worker) is still defending him.

Bellido is certainly homophobic but what he said about Sendero 1) is literally true and 2) in no way is apologizing or supporting them. 18 year olds are not the main bad actors here and it is 110% true that rural Peeu was completely ignored at the time (which allowed SL's rise). It's silly to these those Joe Biden is BLM/Antifa level right wing smears published in English.

That’s certainly true (I never said it wasn’t!) but combined with tributes to Sendero leaders like Edith Lagos it shows a level of downplaying and even support (or at least something that will be seen by most people as support) that shouldn’t be accepted. BLM and Antifa being far-left terrorist organizations is a myth created to scare suburban moms (more akin to how José Antonio Kast views any protester ever), SL is real.

And even from a purely political perspective, this was a really bad move by Castillo. I think the liberal criticism of Nina Turner is stupid but I think it’d be dumb and harmful to the overall cause if Bernie made her his Chief of Staff or some such position. Castillo cannot afford to alienate people.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

The question now is: will Congress accept the cabinet, giving a stamp of approval to a cabinet further to the left than expected and a PM widely rejected by civil society? Or will they hand Castillo his first vote of no confidence and set him on the path to dissolving Congress and getting a new one?

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

I know Castillo won, what I want to know is whether they’re gonna steal from him or not lol. This is PERU we’re talking about, it was always written on the wall that they would try to find an excuse to revert the election results. Even if it was by a larger margin you know they wouldn’t accept having the most left-wing president of the continent who is saying he will nationalize a bunch of stuff and rewrite the neoliberal constitution (Luis Arce, Alberto Fernandez look like boring moderates now lol).

He has just enough support from the legislature to avoid the possibility of impeachment right out of the gate, but not enough to actually achieve anything close to a leftist or even social democratic agenda. He beat Fujimori by (probably) the closest margin yet when she's at her most visibly corrupt and unpopular so he doesn't exactly have an overwhelming popular mandate.  He also lacks the institutional support to seize power like Chavez, so if he achieves anything legally it's more likely to be about "dangerous foreign gender ideology" or expelling Venezuelans than it is to be about nationalizing mines.

and somehow literally the first two things Castillo does is kick out Venezuelans and appoint as PM a guy who used Fidel's old "work will make them men" line unironically lmfao

Castillo's popularity is okay since he just shut up and let Fujimori humiliate herself but the rest of PL is just littered with unreformed Marxist-Leninists. For comparison the last poll I checked put his approval around 53-43 while that of Cerrón is more like 7-70, and even Cerrón is probably more appealing than that lady who wrote praises for Kim Jong Il's rule of North Korea. If Castillo can't cut them loose then his support is going to get dragged right down with the craziest elements of PL even if he somehow manages to get his cabinet through.

[Flyersfan232]

I know Castillo won, what I want to know is whether they’re gonna steal from him or not lol. This is PERU we’re talking about, it was always written on the wall that they would try to find an excuse to revert the election results. Even if it was by a larger margin you know they wouldn’t accept having the most left-wing president of the continent who is saying he will nationalize a bunch of stuff and rewrite the neoliberal constitution (Luis Arce, Alberto Fernandez look like boring moderates now lol).

Why is cerron so hated?

He has just enough support from the legislature to avoid the possibility of impeachment right out of the gate, but not enough to actually achieve anything close to a leftist or even social democratic agenda. He beat Fujimori by (probably) the closest margin yet when she's at her most visibly corrupt and unpopular so he doesn't exactly have an overwhelming popular mandate.  He also lacks the institutional support to seize power like Chavez, so if he achieves anything legally it's more likely to be about "dangerous foreign gender ideology" or expelling Venezuelans than it is to be about nationalizing mines.

and somehow literally the first two things Castillo does is kick out Venezuelans and appoint as PM a guy who used Fidel's old "work will make them men" line unironically lmfao

Castillo's popularity is okay since he just shut up and let Fujimori humiliate herself but the rest of PL is just littered with unreformed Marxist-Leninists. For comparison the last poll I checked put his approval around 53-43 while that of Cerrón is more like 7-70, and even Cerrón is probably more appealing than that lady who wrote praises for Kim Jong Il's rule of North Korea. If Castillo can't cut them loose then his support is going to get dragged right down with the craziest elements of PL even if he somehow manages to get his cabinet through.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Congressional committee assignments came out a while ago. Right wing parties got all the major ones, Peru Libre got science and environment/Andean issues as well as some others. Castillo is pressuring the leadership to reconsider and at least give them the education committee.

In cabinet news, Bellido has been meeting with the various parties to try and get their OK and while it hasn’t gone particularly well, I’m not sure where we’re at with respect to a confidence vote - remember, a vote of no confidence is one step closer to new congressional elections.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Confidence vote is scheduled for the 26th, with much of the opposition planning to abstain. Foreign minister Héctor Béjar (academic and former guerrilla fighter) just resigned over recently unearthed comments in which he claimed that Shining Path was created by the CIA and Peruvian navy.

[PSOL]

Any sort of point made using polls in Peru are based in faulty evidence given how hard it is to poll for rural indigenous highlanders.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Any sort of point made using polls in Peru are based in faulty evidence given how hard it is to poll for rural indigenous highlanders.

Idk man, the runoff polls (for example) were all saying it was around 50-50 and it ended up basically 50-50. I don’t think there’s a bunch of secret Cerronistas hiding out in the mountains.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

New foreign minister is Óscar Maúrtua, who held the post for a year under Toledo - over Cerrón’s objections. Recent IEP poll shows that just over half of the population wants to see some change in the cabinet (no info on how much, though - could be Bellido, could be everyone but Francke) while 24% oppose the whole cabinet and 18% (the same percentage that Perú Libre got in the first round, mind you) fully support it.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Acción Popular will vote in favor of the Bellido cabinet, but still wants Juan Carrasco (Interior minister, previously raised concerns over his taking a leave of absence from his prior job rather than directly resigning but I’m not aware of any other issues - I imagine the right wing of AP is salty about his past as an anti-corruption prosecutor), Walter Ayala (defense minister, questioned for a lack of experience in military issues), and Iber Maraví (labor minister, accused of having ties to MOVADEF) gone.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Congress is debating the confidence vote now. Bellido opened by speaking in Quechua over the complaints of the far right, and I think abandoned Castillo’s pledge to expand rondas campesinas.

Session suspended until tomorrow.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

The confidence vote has passed. PL, JP, AP, and most of APP and Somos Peru* voted in favor. FP, RP, the PM*, and Alianza País (De Soto’s party, maybe the most economically right-wing group despite Castillo and De Soto’s aborted postelection overtures) voted against.

*Somos Peru and the Partido Morado are counted as one parliamentary group, since the morados only have three members and five are needed to form a group.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This was a fun election. Following the slow trickle of results as Keiko's presidential hopes were once again dashed by the slimmest of margins got me through one of the most intense phases of my dissertation writing. I wish I could have taken part in the discussion here.

Sounds like Castillo is already proving to be a disappointment, which isn't exactly a surprise. Still, what matters most is to continue the Keiko Fujimori humiliation conga. That's basically the only purpose of Peruvian politics at this point.

In all seriousness, thank you Alfred for your excellent coverage of the situation there. That was really helpful.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

This was a fun election. Following the slow trickle of results as Keiko's presidential hopes were once again dashed by the slimmest of margins got me through one of the most intense phases of my dissertation writing. I wish I could have taken part in the discussion here.

Sounds like Castillo is already proving to be a disappointment, which isn't exactly a surprise. Still, what matters most is to continue the Keiko Fujimori humiliation conga. That's basically the only purpose of Peruvian politics at this point.

In all seriousness, thank you Alfred for your excellent coverage of the situation there. That was really helpful.

Anything for you, Antonio. I know it’s not exactly the deepest dive on this board, but it does help me keep up with goings-on. I think you’ll be pleased to see that preliminary hearings for Keiko’s trial are underway.

In other news, Congressional Vice President Patricia Chirinos (Avanza País) has accused Bellido of making sexist comments towards her, saying she needs to get married and later to be raped. Alleged witnesses José Jerí of Somos Peru and Jaime Quito of Peru Libre confirm that there was a verbal altercation but disagree on whether the comments occurred, and Enrique Wong of Podemos Peru is reserving his version of the events for testimony before the congressional Ethics Committee. The right (FP, RP, Avanza País) has proposed a formal interpelation/questioning of Íber Maraví due to his alleged links with Movadef and Sendero figures; Bellido asked Maraví to resign and Maraví referred it to Castillo, who told him to stay.

[Flyersfan232]

how long untill castro is removed from office???

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

how long untill castro is removed from office???

I think once he really starts to try things they’ll get him out, although Boluarte is from the more radical wing of the party so they’d have to impeach her as well. Cerrón might support impeaching Castillo if he tacks too far to the center for him for precisely that reason; we’ve already seen him openly criticize moves or anticipated moves by Castillo on Twitter.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Abimael Guzmán has died.

[Lord Halifax]

Abimael Guzmán has died.

RIP HP

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Abimael Guzmán has died.

He will be cremated. A court has rejected his widow’s (Elena Iparraguirre aka Comrade Miriam, whom he married in prison ten years ago) and another high-ranking senderista’s requests to be able to dispose of the body, and it has been declared legally abandoned since he has no other living family.

In other news, justice minister and former leader of Castillo’s legal team Aníbal Torres openly criticized Vladimir Cerrón and the Perú Libre congressional caucus told him to shut up about it in a communique, although several members are known to sympathize with his position (those closest to Castillo, who were brought in from the teacher’s union and related activism).