Pedro Castillo's time

The King of Spain, Felipe VI, and the president-elect of Peru, Pedro Castillo, meet this Tuesday in Lima.TWITTER @CASAREAL / Europa Press

Pedro Castillo's time has come.

The teacher of a small school in the Andes gathered his family and an evangelical pastor around a table at the beginning of the year to announce that he was running for president.

The chances of his success seemed remote.

Eight months later, after an exhausting campaign that has divided the country, Castillo assumes the position of president.

His appointment coincides with a historical date, the 200 years of independence from Peru.

The King of Spain, Felipe VI, and five South American leaders, including the Colombian Iván Duque, will be present at the inauguration of the union leader, who despite the enormous campaign launched against him, comes to power with the support of 50% of the population, who see their future government with hope and confidence, according to a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies released on Sunday.

Castillo will not have it easy to govern.

In front of him will be a Congress to the contrary.

The party with which the rural teacher won the elections, Peru Libre, does not appear on the board of directors and has only 37 seats, out of a total of 130. During the second round campaign, the political groups that dominate the new Parliament supported to his adversary, Keiko Fujimori.

The teacher was proclaimed president just eight days ago. The Fujimori party Fuerza Popular filed -without evidence of irregularities- hundreds of appeals to annul thousands of Castillo's votes, delay the inauguration and cast doubts on the legitimacy and cleanliness of the electoral process. 80% of respondents disapprove of Fujimori's conduct, whose claims were dismissed. This Tuesday the final report of the European Union's electoral observation mission was released. "The elections were generally credible and complete, in accordance with national and international commitments and obligations," the document states.

Another 29% of the citizens surveyed by the Institute of Peruvian Studies view the future government with uncertainty, in part due to the mystery that still surrounds Castillo's cabinet.

So far it is not clear if Vice President Dina Boluarte will assume as president of the Council of Ministers or if it will be Roger Nájar, a cadre close to neurosurgeon Vladimir Cerrón, the president of the Peru Libre Party, a leftist who defines himself as a Marxist-Leninist.

In the last week, Cerrón has pressed the president-elect to the maximum to recruit more leaders from his environment to the Executive and has criticized on Twitter the economist Pedro Francke, who has been voiced for a month as Minister of Economy and member of the left-wing collective moderate Nuevo Perú, by former presidential candidate Verónika Mendoza.

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The conduct of Cerrón, who is testing his influence, has prevented the cabinet from still being closed.

The former regional governor of Junín disparagingly described Francke as a

Chicago boy

, while a group of

Perulibrista

militants

held

a sit-in on Monday night in front of the building where Castillo has been living in Lima since the second-round campaign to demand in the Government more people from the party instead of members of Mendoza's team, who already collaborated with the rural teacher to elaborate the proposals with which Castillo campaigned in the second round.

According to a survey by Ipsos Peru, 75% of Peruvians expect that the new president will prioritize the improvement of health services and the advancement of vaccination against covid-19.

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