Coup d’état in Peru, the day after: the challenges of President Dina Boluarte, in the midst of a profound institutional crisis

Peru woke up Thursday to a climate of uncertainty after the brief coup carried out by Pedro Castillo which ended with his arrest and imprisonment. The baton is now in the hands of his deputy and successor, the current president Dina Boluarte, at the helm of a country that has been sinking for years into a deep institutional crisis.

The newspaper The Republic de Lima slipped on the morning of this Thursday, the day of the Immaculate Conception, that “while the new government is being established and the conformation of his cabinet is known, there remains uncertainty about the position that the new president will develop on various points that are transcendent for the government”.

Since 2016, there have been six presidents in Peru of the Republic and three Parliaments. The challenges, according to the Peruvian newspaper in the editorial of the day, are the return of politics instead of bargaining under the table, ora political reform by the Executive to avoid permanent instability, e a minimum agenda for consensus and the response to the requests of the country that seeks transparency and attention to the common good.

In the uncertainty of his first day in office, Boluarte asked for the time a truce to the opposition to overcome the earthquake of the last few hours.

Form the toilet and survive

Boluarte, a 60-year-old lawyer, must first settle for the next few hours his first ministerial cabinet, what will it allow take the pulse of your government’s direction and glimpse her chances of surviving the political storm that dogged her from parliament into opposition hands.

After a succession of announcements that shook Peru’s institutions in a few hours, Boluarte was sworn in as the country’s first female president and made it clear that he aspires to complete the entire perioduntil July 2026.

Your initial decisions it will be essential to find out if he will achieve that goal, or if he will have to resign himself to step aside and call for an early general election.

In his first words as head of the Peruvian government, called for “national unity” and urged that ideologies be put aside, in a tacit allusion to the confrontation that marked the relationship between Castillo’s left-wing government and the right-dominated Congress.

After he winked at the Organization of American States (Oas): “I make a very specific request to the national representation, I ask for a political truce to install a government of national unity”.

In early December, an OAS mission monitoring the Peruvian political crisis he had asked for a 100-day truce between the Executive and the Legislative which has never happened.

dizzying hours

Peru experienced dizzying hours on Wednesday that ended with Castillo stopped at night in a police base east of Lima, accused in flagrante delicto of the crime of rebellion.

Just before Congress debated its third attempt to remove the president from power in 16 months, he denounced he was the target of “an all-out attack” by parliament, announced its disbandment and curfew, and said he would rule by decree. He also said he will call for snap elections to form a constituent parliament that drafts a new Magna Carta to end the string of presidential dismissals prevailing in the country.

However, the military and the police they didn’t support itand Congress ignored his decision and proceeded to remove him.

Since he took over the presidency in July 2021, Castillo lived under siege from Congress and the prosecutionwho accuses him of directing an alleged “criminal organization” that distributes public contracts in exchange for money.

The departure of the left, which had a 70% rejection according to recent polls, it was approved with 101 votes out of a total of 130 deputies.

reactions

After the removal, US State Department spokesman Ned Price was quick to call him “former president” and considered that the Peruvian congressmen took “corrective measures” according to democratic rules.

Countries from across the region, as well as Spain, have invited respect the rule of law and democracy in Peru.

The European Union (EU), through its office in Lima, has expressed its support for the “political, democratic and peaceful solution adopted by the Peruvian institutions” and has invited “all sectors to engage in a dialogue that guarantees stability” , according to a statement.

fragile situation

Without own bench in Congress, he confronts Boluarte a fragile situation very similar to what the then president Martín Vizcarra lived between 2018 and 2020, who ended up losing his office.

“He doesn’t have a bench in Congress, she is alone“Former President Ollanta Humala warned in statements on Canal N television on Wednesday evening.

“He doesn’t have the tools to govern, he has to call snap elections, he can resign so that the president of Congress can take office and snap the election,” added Humala, who governed from 2011 to 2016.

The former president showed skeptical on the future of the Boluarte government.

“Today is a truce that it will last a month or maybe morebut then the great problems of the country come upon him,” he added.

Fujimori’s support

“We hope the president appoints a cabinet broad basea great cabinet and we all need to make things work well,” right-wing leader Keiko Fujimori tweeted.

The daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) has ensured that her party, Fuerza Popular, the first minority in Congress, will support the new president.

Boluarte could face Congress’s enormous discredit due to corruption scandals, which led him to have an 86% disapproval rate in polls.

Clarín writing with information from the Republic and AFP

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