RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Within the “pencil party,” as it is popularly known in Peru, there is a deep rejection of the new Council of Ministers formed by Castillo, where he gave more space to other, more moderate, left-wing groups that supported him during the second round of the presidential elections.
As a result, the party’s secretary general Vladimir Cerrón urged Castillo to fulfill his campaign pledges under Peru Libre’s program, which includes the calling of a Constituent Assembly.
“We are sure that with the current cabinet they will not even try to fulfill the campaign pledges,” Cerrón said Friday. “It will be a place to defend the ‘status quo’, the usual privileges and the historical discrimination of the people will be maintained. It is still the party’s duty to deliver,” he added.
Cerrón, a doctor politically trained in Cuba and ex-governor of the Junín region who was unable to be a presidential candidate because of a corruption conviction, demanded from Castillo a “quota of power” in the government after learning of the departure of Prime Minister Guido Bellido, his most trusted man in the cabinet.
For Cerrón, the new Council of Ministers of Peru had been left in the hands of “right-wingers, ‘caviars’ (well-off leftists) and traitors.”
BELLIDO INSISTS ON PARDON
Now out of the government, Guido Bellido again used social networks to insist on pardoning Antauro Humala, brother of ex-president Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) from the 19-year prison sentence he is serving for the murder of 4 police officers in a military uprising in 2001.
“Mr. President Pedro Castillo, we have to fulfill our campaign pledge, pardon Major Antauro,” posted Bellido, who in his 70 days as prime minister used Twitter to post controversial messages and to byoass the president in announcing the renegotiation of the Camisea gas contracts.
Bellido was one of the 7 Ministers dismissed after little more than 2 months in power, marked by a heated dispute between the Ministers of Peru Libre, of the more radical left, and the more moderate Ministers, who have gained weight in Castillo’s new Executive.
“A NEW MOMENT”
One of the confirmed Ministers is Roberto Sanchez, president of the leftist coalition Juntos por el Peru (JP), who on Friday said that the changes were “the reassertion of a new political moment.”
“I think there has been enough noise. I think we must move forward and the sensible thing to do is also to start a new stage. This would be the message,” said Sanchez, who holds the Foreign Trade and Tourism portfolio.
Among the new members of the cabinet is Minister of Labor Betssy Chavez, one of Peru Libre’s legislators most critical of Cerron and Bellido, who pledged a more conciliatory approach with the government team now headed by attorney and human rights advocate Mirtha Vasquez as Prime Minister.
“Mirtha Vásquez is going to build all channels of communication, all bridges. She has experience in this type of situation. I believe that her presence as ‘premier’ greatly supports the building of these consensuses,” she said.
The new cabinet now has a period of one month to present itself in Parliament to request the vote of investiture. Peru Libre is the largest party with 37 legislators, but does not control the chamber.