RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The government of the president of Peru, Pedro Castillo, seems to be opening free fronts for the benefit of his political adversaries, especially the right-wing, which is the majority in the Congress and which has already sought to file, last December, a request for impeachment against the president for alleged acts of corruption.
To the accusations of taking advantage of his position to promote military officers close to his entourage, in addition to the suspicions of having intervened for a consortium to win a millionaire bid for road works and to have influenced a company to sell fuel to the State for a value of US$74 million, now another scandal shakes his administration.
On January 9, it was made official, surprisingly, the appointment of former pro-Fujimori congressman Daniel Salaverry as president for six years of the board of Perupetro, the state company in charge of promoting, negotiating, signing, and supervising contracts for the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in the country.
POOR CREDENTIALS
It was Castillo himself who, with the permission of the Minister of Energy and Mines, Eduardo González Toro, appointed Salaverry, who, in 2017 and 2018, presided over the Peruvian parliament.
Criticism arose because there are doubts about Salaverry’s aptitudes for the position and because he is a politician with an oscillating trajectory who, his detractors claim, would move in the middle according to whoever holds the power of the day.
Law 26,625, which regulates the operation of Perupetro, states that the members of the board of directors “must be persons with recognized technical and professional capacity in the subject matter to be carried out”.
The outgoing president of the state-owned company, Seferino Yesquen, is a petroleum engineer who graduated from the National Engineering University of Peru with a master’s degree in Oil and Gas Engineering, a master’s degree in Management and Administration, and 35 years of international experience in the hydrocarbons sector, among other professional achievements.
Salaverry, on the other hand, has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture, with experience as manager of a small construction company and with a political career that includes steps by dissimilar groupings, such as the Partido Aprista Peruano (center-left), Fuerza Popular (Fujimorista, right) and Somos Perú (center-right), party for which he was a candidate for the presidency in the 2021 elections.
POLITICAL FAVOR?
Salaverry’s inability to assume a highly specialized position seems evident, so questions have inevitably arisen about why the president has opted for him.
Salaverry expressed his public support for Castillo’s candidacy in the second round when he ran against Keiko Fujimori, his former leader in Fuerza Popular, and in a confusing incident even proclaimed himself official spokesman for the governing Peru Libre party (conservative left), a position he held for one day, if ever since doubts remain as to what happened then.
Thus, Castillo’s opponents are denouncing that the appointment would be a political favor payment, which could lead to a new request for impeachment for corruption in Congress for a president who seems to be prone to get into more and more numerous and complicated troubles.