Discontent grows in Peru as Dina Boluarte negotiates a new cabinet with the opposition

Hours after taking over as the new president of Peru, Dina Bolarte He has asked for a truce but is being pressured in return. Without his own block in Congress, he is forced to negotiate a cabinet accepted by the opposition.

At the same time, demonstrations and checkpoints have multiplied in the south of the country by supporters of the former president Pedro Castillo, dismissed and arrested for attempted self-coup, who accuse the new president of being a “traitor”. As discontent grows, the new president no longer rules out holding elections.

The political instability of Peru, which has had six presidents in six years, now depends on the truce that Boluarte has asked Congress and on the names of the new cabinet which will be a pledge of legislative approval, but also will have the street as a social thermometer of designations.

Outside the Congress, in the middle of the festivities of the Feast of the Virgin, Boluarte faces the demonstrations of the defenders of Pedro Castillo, detained in the same prison as Alberto Fujimori, the other former president who committed an autocoup in 1992.

“Bring the Vinegar”

“There is a new day of struggle, bring your vinegar, your gloves and be careful, protect yourself, we are not doing anything wrong here. We demand that President Castillo return to government and that these miserable traitors leave. Let’s finish , we all go home they are throwing bombs,” said Andrés, a militant of the former president, who spoke to a thousand people on Thursday in Plaza San Martín, where police fired tear gas moments later.

“Pedro Castillo, Peru is with you!” and “If there is no liberation, there will be a revolution!” read some of the banners of the protesters in downtown Lima. “Dina doesn’t represent me,” was another castillo proclamation.

Demonstrations took place not only in downtown Lima. There was also major roadblocks on the Pan-American Highway. At the height of Ica, 300 kilometers south of the capital, protesters paralyzed the transport of passengers and goods vehicles.

While in Arequipa, 1,000 kilometers south of Lima, there have also been blockades. Transport companies have suspended the sale of tickets for the regions of Moquegua, Tacna and Ica. The Superintendency of land transport of people, goods and cargo (Sutran), the supervisory body for transport services, through a statement urged companies, drivers and passengers to take precautions against the interruption of roads in the south of the country.

There were also street demonstrations in Chota (the area where Castillo grew up), Trujillo, Puno, Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Moquegua.

The Ombudsman’s Office called on “all citizens to remain calm and accountable”; while the Church, through the archbishop of Lima, Monsignor Carlos Castillo, asked: “That the demonstrations are not violent and that there are no road closures, but calm and that an adequate traffic situation is rationally proceeded”.

Boluarte’s gesture to the military

For his part, on Friday at noon and with the presidential sash crossed over his body, Boluarte attended the Army Day ceremony and commemoration of the 198th anniversary of the Battle of Ayacucho, at the Army Headquarters, a gesture of support to the soldiers who did not support the self-coup attempted by Castillo.

And in the search to multiply the gestures, Boluarte remarked when he swore that he would fulfill his mandate until July 2026, the day after he relaxed his position in search of agreements and is now back to giving signals to the opposition.

“During the day and tomorrow (Saturday) before noon the Cabinet will be sworn in. When I was still Minister of State, we accompanied and recommended former President Pedro Castillo not to continue to confront Congress. The question of trust, I think, is It was the breaking point for us to be in this situation,” he said early Friday.

The first female president in Peruvian history is under pressure from left and right to call for snap elections, who would not only be president and vice president. A possible election call would include lawmakers, who are more frowned upon than Castillo as many of them are accused of corruption offences.

After saying that he will complete his mandate to the end, the 60-year-old centre-left lawyer tempered his aspirations once again: “The Constitution says until 2026, but if society, and if the situation justifies holding elections, we we’ll sit down and talk.”

He also talked about Castillo and revealed that he would like to visit him. The 53-year-old rural master who assumed the presidency on July 28, 2021 and since this Wednesday has been detained at the headquarters of the Special Operations Directorate (Diroes), in Ate, was saddened. He was wearing the same blue shirt as him when he was arrested for refusing to avail himself of the right of defense to reply to the allegations.

If found guilty, he could face between 10 and 20 years in prisoneven if Mexico appears as a safe conduct for a possible political asylum.

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