Peru: the president weakened by a violent social protest

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Peruvian President Pedro Castillo thus commented on the situation his country is currently experiencing.

Peru has been agitated by social movements for several days.

Clashes with police left one dead on Tuesday and another on Wednesday.

The first was 18 years old and took part in the demonstrations in Huánuco.

He died in Ambo hospital of cerebral oedema.

The second participated in the blocking of tolls in the southern region of Ica on the Panamerican.

Aged 22, he was an agricultural employee in this fertile region which feeds much of the country.

15 people were injured during his clashes, including 12 police officers according to the authorities.

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President Castillo had tried to quell the social anger that was mounting last week by abolishing a fuel tax and increasing the minimum wage by 10%.

If the first measure may have had effects for Peruvians, the second remains symbolic, because since the pandemic and the long quarantine that has been imposed on the country, many members of the middle class have had to fall back on an activity in the sector. informal, essentially unaffected by statutory wage increases.

Curfew

Fearing violent demonstrations, the Peruvian president decided on Monday to decree a curfew from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m. Tuesday in the capital Lima and the port of Callao.

This measure announced on television was strongly rejected by the population who marched under banners “

banging on pots to show their main concern: their difficulty in buying food.

Read alsoPeru: Keiko Fujimori contests his announced defeat in the presidential election

Faced with the outcry of a large part of the country, President Castillo had to give up this measure in the afternoon of Tuesday.

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down, ”said the president, claiming to be on the left alongside the president of Parliament, the right-wing opponent Maria del Carmen Alva, with whom he had just consulted about social movements. In progress.

This social crisis occurs in a more than agitated political context.

Pedro Castillo began his term as president on July 28, 2021. His accession to power was delayed by the appeals that his second-round opponent, Keiko Fujimori, filed to contest his defeat: the candidate of the small Marxist-Leninist party Peru Libre had only won with 50.12% of the votes in the ballot on June 6, 2021. Pedro Castillo is a teacher of peasant origin who generally appears wearing a straw hat typical of the Cajamarca region.

Keiko is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, imprisoned for the multiple abuses committed while he was president of the country.

Its intelligence chief of sinister memory, Vladimir Montesinos, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence,

made at least 17 phone calls to members of the National Electoral Council (JNE) in an attempt to reverse the election result according to police taps.

Keiko herself is being prosecuted for illicit financing of her 2011 and 2016 election campaigns.

Alleged corruption

Since his accession to power, Pedro Castillo has failed to impose himself.

In the traditional rivalry between Parliament and the government, it quickly weakened, having to appoint four governments in less than seven months.

A first impeachment procedure against him failed in Parliament in December.

A second was no more successful on March 17.

He was accused of having intervened in a case of alleged corruption operated in his entourage and of having committed "

" for having declared to be open to a referendum on the outlet to the Pacific Ocean for the benefit of the Bolivian neighbor.

Three presidents before him had to leave power after an identical procedure: Alberto Fujimori in 2000,

Read alsoThe political situation calms down in Peru

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," said Patricia Zarate, head of opinion studies at the Institute of Peruvian Studies in Lima.

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This political and social context places the Peruvian president in a weak position.

Opinion polls show that while 79% of Peruvians disapprove of Parliament's obstruction procedures against the government, 66% of them show distrust of Pedro Castillo.

The rise in the price of fuel and basic necessities is further weakening the government of a country which has suffered the brunt of the Covid crisis and is struggling to recover.

In number of deaths, Peru is the country which has paid the heaviest price for the pandemic with 663.96 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (208.64 for France).