The president-elect, Pedro Castillo, greets the current, Francisco Sagasti, in a meeting at the Government Palace on July 21. Peruvian Presidency / HANDOUT / EFE
Everything was said and alleged from a mind-boggling extreme right, reinforced by some well-known characters.
Everything to torpedo for six interminable weeks, with all kinds of weapons, the proclamation of Pedro Castillo as president of Peru, elected on June 6 in the second round against Keiko Fujimori.
They had been repeating that Castillo was a "communist" and that his government would copy the "model" of Castro, Chávez and Maduro. Expensive luminous panels with distressing images of Cuban rafters, among other pearls, announced what would happen to the Peruvians if he won. After the vote, when it was clear that the results favored Castillo, the axis became, insistently and without proof, the hoax of an alleged fraud. Even that the Peruvian electoral system was run by Chavista Venezuelans (former Colombian President Pastrana
Dixit
).
Meanwhile, attacks were organized against electoral officials, and others made unacceptable public and repeated calls to the military to "act";
in other words, to carry out a coup d'état.
In parallel, the losing party in the second round presented more than 1,000 appeals to obstruct the inevitable result, postponing the proclamation and the government transfer work.
The battery was packed with heavy artillery.
But it is that none of the objectors could brandish, even if it was a single piece of evidence of the alleged “fraud”.
Upside down.
All international organizations observing the election (more than 20) praised - and reiterated - the quality and rigor of the electoral process.
And so did the world's leading democratic governments.
But the facts didn't matter.
Anger and intolerance marked the beat of the music.
So much so that it was even assumed by Mrs. Ayuso, president of the community of Madrid, who with reprehensible lightness went so far as to affirm that in Peru they had voted "44,000 dead."
They would have to ask her for excuses - or at least give her explanations - who transmitted a tremendous story to her in Madrid.
The long-awaited official proclamation of Castillo as president-elect occurred on Monday.
Will this change things and the political climate?
Hopefully yes and in favor of this we have at least a couple of indicators.
Let's start with the president-elect, Professor Castillo, a man from the Andes who will assume the presidency next Wednesday the 28th when the bicentennial of independence is commemorated. In his brief public intervention, from the balcony of his political premises and within minutes of his proclamation, he was very clear and emphatic. He called for "the broadest unity" to "build together a fairer, more united, more humane Peru" and directly invoking "Mrs. Fujimori not to put up more obstacles to move this country forward." He also noted that there will be political, legal and economic stability. In any political context that would be positively understood as a very important signal.
We will see if this call, which is something more than a gesture, has a correspondence. The panorama is clouded by the fact that, despite the fact that Mrs. Fujimori said on Monday that she recognized that Pedro Castillo had been proclaimed president, with the other hand she erased that recognition: the proclamation was “illegitimate” (something similar to what she said in 2016 , after which his bench was fully dedicated to sabotaging the government elected on that occasion). He announced, at the same time, that he will fight to "reestablish legitimacy"; So he brandished an ax of war. The unitary invocation and convocation of the president-elect will have to be firm and sustained, since there will be vibes of fanaticism and confrontation, already announced, that will oppose him.
The second indicator is that during the second round Castillo was refining and refining his formulations. The “ideology” with which the Peru Libre (PL) party was registered was clearly left behind; like the other groups, to whose generic formulations few paid attention. Castillo, it is known, was invited by PL, without being from his ranks, as a presidential candidate. Both he and spokesmen in economic matters, repeatedly, have affirmed during the second round the need for economic and institutional stability and in his message this Monday he once again emphatically rejected “anything that goes against democracy or any pretense of bringing a model from another country ”(which has been understood as an allusion to Chávez / Maduro and Venezuela).
Everything simple and straightforward?
By the way, no.
Several unknowns will have to be resolved in a context in which the extreme right could continue on the warpath.
Castillo does not have a parliamentary majority and it could happen that on the bench of the party for which he was a candidate - the largest, but far from being a majority - not everything will be rosy.
He therefore has the first challenge he seems to be working on: reaffirming his unitary and concerted declaration and forging alliances to make the functioning of his Government viable.
This could include organizing a cabinet of a certain breadth, as would seem to be the intention.
On the other hand, there is the street, hopeful people who will vehemently knock on the doors of political power from day one before a government that has been elected as the embodiment of change. This is in a dramatic context hampered by the pandemic and an economic decline of more than 11% in 2020. The increase in poverty, unemployment and the pandemic demand responses and results without delay, with obvious priority and a very specific agenda.
In this complex context, the issue of a constituent assembly - your campaign approach - has its own complexities. Not legal, because a referendum to consult whether or not a constituent is wanted would be based on articles 31 and 32.1 of the Constitution. But mainly due to urgent emergencies (pandemic and collapsed economy) and the context of existing polarization. This is probably the time, then, to affirm paths of agreement and to refine, for another moment, issues that could be more controversial.