In Peru, the new president seeks dialogue with the opposition

Will the crisis in Peru end with the sequence that began on Wednesday, November 7, with the fall of President Pedro Castillo and the inauguration in the wake of his vice-president, Dina Boluarte? Nothing is less certain in a country where political division is causing instability and growing dissatisfaction within a population hit hard by the economic crisis. First woman at the head of the Peruvian state, the new president, who succeeds Mr. Castillo after his failed attempt at a “self-coup”, met the representatives of the various parliamentary groups on Thursday 8 December. She summoned them one by one to the presidential palace, in a gesture of dialogue and an outstretched hand, while the confrontation between the executive and legislative powers has poisoned political life for six years. No president has since had a parliamentary majority.

Thursday evening, Dina Boluarte had not yet announced the composition of her government, but was calm in front of the cameras, announcing a new era of relations with the press – extremely tense under Castillo – as well as with the only parliamentary Chamber . However, these meetings aroused reservations and mistrust within part of the political class and the population, voices rising to denounce a tacit pact between Dina Boluarte and the right-wing opposition.

“Let it listen to civil society organizations, labor unions and social movements (…) and not only the Congress, where the parties co-responsible for the crisis are, ” said a coalition of civil society organizations. Others recalled that the Congress itself collects barely 13% of favorable opinions and that part of the opinion would like the dissolution that Mr. Castillo had tried to obtain on Wednesday.

political suicide

His coup de force, which provided for the establishment of an emergency government and the “taking control of the institutions, the judiciary, the prosecution and the constitutional court”, recalls Fernando Tuesta Soldevilla, former head of the organization in charge of the elections in Peru, was perceived as political suicide, while it could not count on the support of the armed forces or even on that of the members of its own cabinet.

The Congress, meeting in extraordinary session, immediately voted for his dismissal, and the left-wing ex-president was arrested a few hours later. He was transferred by helicopter on Wednesday evening to a prison in the east of the capital, the same one where former autocrat Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) is imprisoned. The justice ordered seven days of pre-trial detention in order to carry out the investigations for “rebellion” and “conspiracy”. The security forces carried out searches at dawn at the presidency and in certain ministries.

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