Page 11 - MONTT LATIN AMERICAN MAGAZINE, OCTUBRE 2021 (English)

Opposition Grows Against
President’s Policies
political moderate left.
The first reaction of the opposition was that of the president of Congress, María del Carmen Alva, who supported the decision of the head of state. “After several days of unnecessary uncertainty and highly questioned ministers, we salute President Castillo’s decision to change the Ministerial Cabinet,” she tweeted. Bellido will return to his seat on the parliamentary bench of Peru Libre.
Since the former prime minister came to the Government, he generated discomfort in the political and economic elite due to his lack of experience in public management. The fracture within the Cabinet was also clear from day one. In July, the oath of two ministers had to be delayed when it emerged that Bellido would lead the Cabinet. Pedro Francke, Minister of Economy, and Aniball Torres, Minister of Justice and Human Rights, asked Castillo for guarantees that Cerron would not intervene in Cabinet affairs.
This is the second loss in the Cabinet in near two months. 19 days after taking office as chancellor, the Government asked the sociologist and writer Héctor Béjar to resign, after the controversy that fuelled the opposition due to his statements prior to his tenure as minister. Béjarr commented in an internet chat that the Shining Path was not the first to have terrorist activity in Peru, referring to sabotage and crimes committed by members of the Navy in the 1970s.
But things did not end there. A few days after the departure of the prime minister, when the President replaced seven ministers, the head of the Interior, Luis Barranzuela, resigned after being severely criticized for holding a party at his home and not respecting health restrictions in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, in search of governability, Castillo intends to make a clean start from scratch with a new Executive. Finally, the Peruvian Congress granted the vote of confidence to the cabinet chaired by Mirtha Vásquez, after a debate. Confidence in the new group of authorities obtained 68 votes in favour, 56 against and one abstention during the plenary session of Parliament, after a long session in which Vásquez and the ministers again presented the State actions planned for the next few months.
Bellido’s forced resignation has cracked the Peru Libre party. His spokesperson, Waldemar Cerrón, the leader’s brother, described the new appointments and Bellido’s departure as a “betrayal of the people,” but several parliamentarians from that formation disagreed. The leaders of the parties whose votes defined the decisions of Parliament, Popular Action and Alliance for Progress, congratulated the appointment of feminist lawyer Mirtha Vásquez as the new president of the Council of Ministers
Mesias Guevara, president of Acción Popular, wished him success and invoked the political forces “to generate consensus for governance”, which anticipates the vote in favour of him at the inauguration. Between both parties they add 31 votes.
The head of the Alianza para el Progreso, the two-time presidential candidate César Acuña, also welcomed the departure of Guido Bellido, which he described as “the end of a cycle of unnecessary confrontations that affect the good progress of the country.”
Conciliatory voices came even from the right. Parliamentarian Norma Yarrow - split from the far-right Renovación Nacional - highlighted the great difference between the profile of Vásquez and Bellido. “There is no point of comparison,” she pointed out. About the outgoing prime minister, she assured that he “had no moral capacity or professional solvency” for the position.
The former prime minister of the transitional government of Francisco Sagasti (from November 2020 to July 2021), Violeta Bermúdez, highlighted Vásquez’s dialogue and negotiation skills in that period as president of Congress, after the political crisis that opened the dismissal scored by Martín Vizcarra when we have the information. Bermúdez believes that if the new prime minister puts aside the debate on a change to the Constitution, which Bellido insisted on, she will receive the support of all sectors.
If she succeeds, Castillo could begin to rule, more than three months after the Peruvians elected him at the polls.
Downward Evaluation and Ideology
In the midst of it all, two credit rating agencies downgraded their assessment of Peru’s sovereign debt, arguing that political uncertainty and declining business confidence remain. The announcement came a couple of days after the cabinet change. Fitch Ratings cut the credit rating from BBB + to BBB and adjusted its outlook on the Andean country from negative to “stable”. For its part, S&P Global Ratings maintained the rating, but changed its outlook to “negative”.
“The trend of economic growth has been down in this period (since 2019), and Fitch believes that the medium-term investment outlook has weakened as a result of political volatility in recent years,” says a statement from the agency. The firm supports its perspective that a scenario of lower growth and post-pandemic social demands will challenge the administration’s ability to stabilize public debt and Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
On the other hand, it was reported that the Governments of Peru and Bolivia plan to seal a hundred bilateral commitments, but beyond the good harmony between both cabinets, the Bolivian President, Luis Arce, and his predecessor want to fully add Castillo to the revolutionary alliance that supports Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in their totalitarian development. This, despite the ideological closeness, has not happened yet, especially after the turn caused by the dismissal of former prime minister Guido Bellido.
The leftist deployment of Mexico for the Region, where President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador led an attempt to resuscitate the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), created by Hugo Chavez and Lula da Silva a decade ago, persists and favourable winds are expected for this group in the next elections in Chile, Colombia and Brazil.
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