Controversy in Peru over President Sagasti’s call to Nobel prize winner Vargas Llosa

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The confirmation that Peru’s President Francisco Sagasti called Nobel Literature Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa to discuss the Peruvian presidential elections has generated new controversy and even rumors that there are plans to call for the President’s impeachment.

Once it was reported on Thursday that Sagasti had phoned Vargas Llosa, who openly supports candidate Keiko Fujimori, the president confirmed this dialogue. Still, he said that it was to ask him to wait calmly for the final results of the elections held this past Sunday.

Following this information, rumors circulated that opposition legislators were planning to file a censure request against the president, who finishes his term on July 28, for alleged “meddling” in electoral matters.

In Peru, the president is prohibited from intervening in political campaigns in favor of a candidate and speaking with representatives of bodies responsible for elections. Mario Vargas Llosa is neither a candidate nor an election official.

This Friday, journalist Alvaro Vargas Llosa, son of the Nobel Prize winner, ratified on RPP radio station that the dialogue took place, but said that “from there to conclude that there was something improper, illegal, unconstitutional in this conversation, there is a huge stretch.”

SAGASTI’S VERSION

Sagasti said that he maintained communication with Mario Vargas Llosa and other people linked to Fujimori and her electoral rival, Pedro Castillo, with the objective of “lowering the tension and awaiting the final results” of the Peruvian election.

“The task of a head of state is to make the country maintain serenity and calm in difficult and complex moments. In this effort, I got in touch with several people who -I understood- have contact with both candidacies”, he remarked.

The governor deplored, for this reason, “that an action oriented to maintain calm in such a polarized, complex and difficult environment, plagued with lies and distortions”, like the one that, according to him, his country is “living”.

“I will not let any lie or misrepresentation of my words and actions by the enemies of democracy pass. I will continue in my effort to seek the best for our country, and I will do so until the last minute of my administration,” he concluded.

CALL FOR PRUDENCE

In his statements this Friday, Álvaro Vargas Llosa said that we must “maintain prudence and let the electoral authorities do their job” to define the winner of the presidential elections in Peru.

He detailed that the conversation between the president and his father “was not a secret”, because Sagasti “let a series of his collaborators know” that he had that intention. Still, he assured that “it would be an infidelity” to reveal the exact terms of the dialogue.

“It was strictly private,” he reiterated before saying that, after that conversation, his father asked him to “get in touch with Keiko to reiterate in unequivocal terms his support for what she is doing,” since she has asked for a review of more than 800 ballots from the election, which Castillo is leading.

“I understand that the president, like 33 million Peruvians, realizes that there is a very delicate, agitated environment, and it is perfectly logical that in this climate, any authority inclines to act in dialogue with different characters of the country to be able to cool things down”, he remarked.

Despite this, Vargas Llosa’s son said that although the president “is perfectly within his rights” to take these initiatives, “it is also true that in this climate of suspicion, of distrust, any conversation of this nature can lend itself to misinterpretation.”

However, he considered that “it does not lead to anything good to throw wood on the fire” with a request for the impeachment of the ruler, so “this initiative does not make any sense.”