In Peru, a year of uncertainty ends and another begins that promises to be the same

In the midst of a temporary decrease in the intensity of popular protest, a Peru mourning the deaths of 27 people prepares to close a year full of difficulties and give way to another equally uncertain.

“In democratic terms we won’t see a better situation, but without a doubt (President Dina Boluarte) can be supported for a while yet,” predicted leftist former MP Indira Huilca, on alternative channel La Mula TV.

But it will do so, added Huilca, “with the same strategy: with repression and persecution”.

In Peru of uncertainty, the next appointment at the polls is scheduled for April 2024. In other words, 2023 will be a pre-electoral year, despite the fact that an Executive and a Legislative had emerged from the 2021 elections, which under normal conditions should last until 2026.

If the schedule is met – they have yet to be confirmed in a second parliamentary vote – Peru would have a new president and a new Congress in July 2024, a year and a half which in current circumstances feels like a century.

Rejection of Dina Boluarte

According to a poll by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP), 71% of inhabitants do not agree that Boluarte has hired the head of state to replace the ousted Pedro Castillo, of which he was vice president.

For the director of the IEP, Patricia Zárate, this refusal derives from the discrediting of Congress, since the arrival of Boluarte was seen as a move to remove the specter of early elections as much as possible.

If the current president had refused to take the lead, the position should have been filled by the president of Congress, José Williams, who would have been required by law to call an election immediately.

Everything got worse when Boluarte said at first he was here to stay until 2026in coexistence with the questioned legislative decree. When he moved away from that position, the country was already in flames.

The repression has worsened the image. Boluarte, elected vice president in a leftist formula and said to identify with that thought, began to be seen by many as an expression of that right that fiercely opposed Castillo.

“Today we finally have a president, but it is not Boluarte, but Keiko (Fujimori), who governs, meaning Keiko not as a specific person, but as everything she represents,” interpreted political analyst José Luis Ramos.

Far from what was his party, the Marxist-Leninist Peru Libre, today critical of his management, Boluarte, according to those who oppose him, he seems more comfortable on the side of the right-wing forces that control Congressamong which the Fujimorist Fuerza Popular party is the majority.

Those who question the president also accuse her of having handed over a large part of her power to the military, in exchange for control of the groups that are demanding her exit through mobilization.

That feeling grew with the appointment as head of the ministerial cabinet of the then defense minister, Alberto Otárola, perceived by analysts as very close to military institutions.

“The image of a government with a relationship hanging from the military’s arm is ratified. Otárola is clearly that symbol,” said anthropologist Eduardo Ballón, of the Center for Development Studies and Promotion.

The new prime minister replaced the one originally appointed by Boluarte, Pedro Angulo, who fizzled out within a week due to alleged dark events in his past and the repression.

For Ballón, the arrival of Otárola to the number two position of the Executive is only an “opening”, since the perception has taken root that it was he who, from the Ministry of Defence, was in command.

Less stress on the streets

The demonstrations that erupted after Castillo’s dismissal and which leave nearly three dozen dead and hundreds wounded and detained tend to decrease as the days go by, but they still seem far from disappearing completely.

At least five highway points are still blocked, although the seizures have ended in about 180. In Andean departments such as Apurímac, Ayacucho and Arequipa the mobilization is great and a truce has been agreed in Cusco until January.

Meanwhile, the envoys of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) are carrying out an inspection visit, while the call for investigation and punishment against the military and police which have fallen in excess.

In all this context, the political forces, strongly challenged by public opinion, will have to prepare for early elections which are already inevitable.

Sectors of the left wanted the elections to take place within four months, but the electoral bodies raised doubts about holding them and no consensus was reached on this path.

In the end, despite Boluarte wanting to set the elections for December 2023 and the electoral bodies deeming it feasible, the idea of ​​2024 was imposed on Congress, a date that will have to be confirmed by next March.

Clashes in Congress

But It will not be an easy road to take because the right and the left have precise requests and the current Congress has not been characterized by its ability to reach consensus.

So, for the right, it is important that changes are made, such as a return to bicamerality or an end to the ban on the re-election of deputies.

Furthermore, the most radicalized sectors of the right are asking to change the members of the National Electoral Jury and the National Office of Electoral Processes, on the basis of the re-proposed argument without evidence that there was fraud in 2021.

The left, in turn, is fighting for a referendum on election day to decide whether to amend the 1993 constitution, which has been contested by that sector but fiercely defended by the other party.

Once all these points have been passed, the electoral race will start, everything a sea of ​​doubts, given that no programs, candidates or potential alliances are outlinednor are any postulations of force projected.

If 2021 was a chaotic year for Peruvian politics, as everyone had been since 2016, new events unleashed in 2022 that only allow us to glimpse that uncertainty will also prevail in 2023.

Source: Telam

c.b.