Page 10 - MONTT LATIN AMERICAN MAGAZINE, OCTUBRE 2021 (English)

Peru: Amending the Path
After just 69 days, President Pedro Castillo was forced to replace eight ministers, including his controversial premier, a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, Guido Bellido, who threatened the nationalization of the largest gas consortium in the country. A few days later, the Interior Minister resigned for holding a party at his house despite pandemic restrictions.
It was during the last week of September when the recently appointed Peruvian Prime Minister, Guido Bellido, tweeted a message to the top executives of the country’s largest gas field, Camisea, threatening to nationalize it if the consortium formed by Argentina’s Pluspetrol, Spain’s Repsol and the American Hunt Oil, among other companies, refused to “renegotiate” the distribution of benefits in favour of the State.
With the unusual action, the authority ruined the little, although renewed business confidence that the new President Pedro Castillo garnered in a recent visit to the United States, where he met with executive presidents of mining and pharmaceutical companies, inviting them to maintain their investments and offering guarantees of stability in the country.
Not only that, shortly before the then prime minister urged the head of Foreign Relations, Oscar Mantua, to resign if he did not agree with the Executive recognizing Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate President of Venezuela.
Quickly, the President had to go out to defend private investment. “My Government in its commitment to address as a priority the great problems that the country has - health, hunger, poverty - determined to take some decisions in favour of governance”, he added in a
televised message in which he questioned Bellido’s way of doing politics, although he thanked him for the services he provided. The former prime minister represented in the Cabinet the position of the radical left-wing politician Vladimir Cerron, leader of the party with which Castillo became President, and had generated numerous internal confrontations in the two months during which he held office. With this latest movement, Castillo struck the table in front of those who doubted who really held power in the Government: the President or Cerron himself through the prime minister.
“The balance of powers is the bridge between the rule of law and democracy, and it must ensure tranquility and cohesion in the Government. Interpellation, the question of trust and censorship should not be used to create political instability. Peru expects a lot from its authorities, it is time to put the country above ideologies and isolated positions, “ said the rural professor and left-wing unionist.
Seeking Governance
Castillo immediately announced the oath of a new Cabinet, where he replaced seven ministers, including Bellido by the lawyer Mirtha Vásquez, former president of Congress between November and July, a defender of human rights for more than a decade and a
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