Who is Vladimir Cerrón, the man behind Peru’s Pedro Castillo?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Vladimir Cerrón, the founder and controversial leader of the Peru Libre party, is seen by analysts and the Peruvian press as a kind of black monk, a cunning Rasputin behind the new leftist president.

He has said time and again that Pedro Castillo must subordinate himself to the ideological framework of the Peru Libre party. Castillo’s first decisions indicate that is exactly what is happening.

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Many in Peru believe that Pedro Castillo is just a puppet of the former governor of Junín, that the latter has shaped Castillo’s candidacy according to his own ideas, handing him a crisis-ridden country on a silver platter ready to implement his threatening ideology.

The harshest critics go further and say that Cerrón is the head and Castillo his hands and legs. Cerrón would have liked to become president himself instead of putting someone else in the presidential chair.

THE MARXIST NEUROSURGEON FORGED IN CUBA

Vladimir Roy Cerrón Rojas is now 50 years old and was born in Ahuac, Junín. He is a neurosurgeon by profession and studied in Cuba and at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. He has been a militant leftist all his life, mainly because his parents taught him class struggle and the dogmas of radical politics. He describes himself as a socialist, Marxist, and Leninist and is an admirer of Hugo Chávez.

His father, Jaime Cerrón Palomino, was a Communist Party activist and a pro-Soviet politician. He was a professor of Marxist philosophy and academic vice-rector of the Universidad Nacional del Centro. He was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in June 1990. After this episode, his son Vladimir asked for exile in Cuba, where he studied medicine. He began his political life in the Nationalist Party, founding the Peruvian Patriotic Front and eventually Peru Libre.

Later, in 2006, he ran for the Junín regional government and came in third place. Years later, he tried again, and in 2010 he was elected regional governor of the same district. In 2014, he ran for re-election but only came in second. He tried to run for Peru Libertario as a presidential candidate in 2016 but withdrew due to low national support. In 2018, he ran again for the Junín regional government and was elected.

However, Cerrón was suspended from his position as governor by the Regional Council on August 20, 2019, due to his criminal conviction in the La Oroya case. He is currently under investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for alleged participation in a criminal organization. According to the investigation, during his time as governor, Cerrón allegedly awarded the construction of two bridges in his region to companies headed by Martín Belaunde Lossio.

Despite the investigation, he has already been convicted by the Fifth Anti-Corruption Court of the Junín Superior Court, where he was found guilty of irreconcilable negotiations and exploiting his position to pay for an improper upgrade of a sewage project in Yauli, La Oroya. He was sentenced to 4 years and 8 months in prison and must pay a fine of 850,000 soles.

Cerrón was on the run for 16 days and then turned himself in. He appealed, and on October 8 of the same year, the Appeals Chamber of the Junín High Court reduced his sentence to 3 years and 9 months, which is why he was able to have his trial in freedom and leave Huamancaca prison. Since he was not allowed to run for the presidency, he called Pedro Castillo and ran for the second vice president of the Peru Libre party, but was rejected by the National Electoral Jury (JNE).

Thus, Cerrón was actively participating in the presidential campaign, from drafting the party’s governmental plan, which many say is dangerous for the Peruvian economic system, to Castillo’s proselytizing campaigns in the interior. Another clear interference is that he proposes members of his family, such as his brother Valdemar Cerrón, who is being investigated by prosecutors on suspicion of money laundering and who won a seat in the next parliament.

On the other hand, Cerrón has publicly stated that he will not seek or hold public office if Castillo, his partner in Perú Libre, becomes president. He has also denied that he is pulling strings in this campaign, just as he has denied that he is behind the leftist ticket in this second round of elections. “What suits me is to stay within the party forums, not in government. At the moment, I’m not seeking a government post should Peru Libre win in the second round,” he explained.

Vladimir Cerrón is undoubtedly one of the most controversial figures of the radical left, especially the one developed in the country’s interior, advocating ideas linked to communism and even terrorism. It should be recalled that some time ago, he tried unsuccessfully to unite his party with the left, which he calls “capitalist.” In fact, he has tried to distance himself from all those projects that have proved to be more liberal.