The Peruvian cabinet: “They expected operators with political capacity, as well as left or right”

Dina Boluarte’s brand new cabinet has little political hair to deal with a political crisis as far-reaching as the one that is shaking the country, according to the analysis of Hernán Chaparro, professor and researcher at the University of Lima.

– Does the institutional crisis end with these last names?, Clarín asks him

-No. We are in the middle of a process. An indication that there is progress in resolving the political crisis in the country would be that there is clear progress in the political consensus for political reform. We have already gone through a reform attempt that fell apart. We are halfway there, a weak government with the risk of being repeated edition of (Martín) Vizcarra (shot down in 2020 by Parliament).

-The question is whether with this team Baluarte can calm down the so-called elections and protests?

-In the end. The protests are from radical left groups, not in all cases but in several cases linked to an authoritarian left, which only understands that the solution lies in an almost idyllic reform of the Constitution. It will depend on the management, to what extent the respective ministries are ordained or incorporated into each of these requests. He has made a round of dialogue with the parties in Congress, there should be some sort of political operator, even if most have a more technical profile.

-How can a president be governed in Congress without his own bench?

-Very low, that’s the problem. My expectation was to have a government with greater political weight, with a prime minister who had the political weight of him so that the government had a clear interlocutor and did not wear out the figure of the president.

The only clear consensus that exists now is that we need to sort out the mess of public management, there was unprecedented clientelism and then political reforms and the calling of elections. But he feels more like someone who is playing the edge to see if he can stick around until 2026 and more like a desire to be in power to enjoy it.

It is a formula that will not last long, there will be internal pressure because Congress has a thousand problems and a radical left that was not active today has reason to mobilize. It will be very unstable and I don’t see a sense of urgency for reforms.

difficult profiles

-Boluarte is centre-left and he nominated Angulo, who was centre-right.

-Interrogation appeared quickly, complaints of sexual harassment, but he too is not a person with a clear political profile. I think the expectation was to have more high-profile traders, with political negotiating skills, beyond left or right positions.

-Congress has a worse image than Castillo. Don’t want to call an election to stay in office?

-Congress has always had a lower approval rating than a weak president like Castillo, but mostly because those in Congress are independent operators who enter Congress with a partisan letterhead and start operating on very particular schedules. , many of which are linked to illicit interests.

Will Congress help Boluarte?

-We do not know what the behavior of Congress will be, if they continue on the agenda they had. Today, since they will no longer have the prime excuse of a bad ruler like Castillo was, they will be more in the spotlight.

And it is a situation which the Executive should exploit for the sake of good governance, not for its own benefit. If they are slowly clarifying, with low expectations, what happens in the Executive what is really marked as a question mark is what the behavior of Congress will be.