From Lima
On the edge of the precipice after the widespread rejection of the cabinet headed by the right-wing legislator accused of family violence Héctor Valer, which lasted only three days, President Pedro Castillo appointed his fourth cabinet in less than seven months of administration. Sign of the instability of the government and a crisis that has become chronic. But the new ministerial team is revealed as a lost opportunity to replace ministers with a heavy burden of ethical questions, give the government the capacity to convene, stability and a clear course that meets the popular demands that led Castillo to the presidency. Six new ministers join the team of nineteen and one is rotated. Of the ten ministers who entered the government a week ago, five stay and five leave before they can settle into their offices. Several of the most questioned ministers are kept, but the minister with the best image is changed. A shift towards economic neoliberalism, seen by many as a betrayal, is ratified. There are only three women in the new cabinet.
Castillo has turned to one of his ministers who have been in office since the beginning of the government for the post of new chief of staff, his minister of Justice and Human Rights, Aníbal Torres, a 79-year-old lawyer without political activism, a fellow countryman from Castillo and an unconditional defender of the president. In a confrontational, polemical, ironic and often aggressive style to respond to critics of the government, he has faced the opposition harshly.He has also had friction with members of the ruling party and an open confrontation with the secretary general of the ruling party Peru Libre (PL), Vladimir Cerrón. It does not seem the best way for an increasingly isolated government to open a dialogue beyond its hard core. Some see him as a shock chief of staff. Despite his differences with Torres, Cerrón, who has regained a share of power in the new cabinet, has backed the new ministers.
In a much criticized decision, the doctor Hernando Cevallos, of the left outside PL and who has led a successful vaccination campaign against covid 19, whose management has been recognized even by the opposition, was removed from the ministry of Health and replaced by the doctor Hernán Condori, also a PL militant and very close to Cerrón. The new head of Health is accused of corruption for his role as health director of the government of the Junín region under the administration of PL and the Medical College investigates him for promoting the use of supposedly medicinal products without scientific basis on their medical utility. Concerns about the future of vaccination. This change reveals a concession by Castillo to Cerrón, from whom he was estranged, giving the general secretary of PL, who is a doctor, control through one of his relatives of a ministry that he coveted since the beginning of the government.The president thus seeks to secure the votes of the sector of the pro-government bench that controls Cerrón, which had threatened to take away its support.
But if a minister comes out that everyone was betting should stay, there are still several on which there was consensus should have been changed. One is the Interior, investigated for drug trafficking and abuse of power, who made his debut in office threatening to repress social mobilizations. The one in Defense was denounced for family violence, the one in Culture, which comes from the center-right party Somos Perú, used social networks to launch racist messages and target officials of the current government, a “terruqueo”, as they say in Peru. Transport has come from the beginning of the government and in its management has been favoring the mafias of informal transport.
With so many ministers remaining, a positive change is the entry into the ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations of renowned feminist activist Diana Miloslavich to replace the ultra-conservative PL legislator, Katy Ugarte, who opposed gender equality policies, who lasted only three days. This change is a nod from Castillo to the progressive sectors that took away their support with the appointment of the Valer cabinet, but it remains to be seen whether that is enough to regain that support.
The ratification of the Minister of Economy, Oscar Graham, a neoliberal technocrat appointed a week ago to replace the leftist economist Pedro Francke, who had been doing a good job in the country’s economic recovery, confirms Castillo’s abandonment of his proposals to change the economic model in order to seek the support of businessmen.
In dialogue with Página 12, sociologist and political analyst Carlos Reyna pointed out that “there is little air that this new cabinet can give the government. Castillo has changed to Valer that it was disastrous, but Torres is a conflictive character and very aligned to Castillo, when the general demand was to put an independent figure and with ability to summon. Some of the most unpresentable ministers have come out, but others remain. The only logic of this cabinet is to distribute ministries thinking about the narrowest political interest of the government to have allies and add votes in Congress, but this is a chaotic cabinet, absolutely heterogeneous, which reflects the way of thinking and style of Castillo. There are right-wing ministers, very conservative, neoliberal, statist, pragmatic, technical, a feminist, there’s everything. The most serious thing in this new cabinet is the change of the minister of Health.”
The analyst points out that this latest crisis “has revealed that Castillo is not a puppet of anyone, as it was said, but, on the contrary, manipulates his allies, whom, with a group of advisers with whom he governs, he has deceived”. In Reyna’s opinion, the future of Castillo’s government, whom she describes as someone who “is neither left nor right, but an opportunist”, is very complicated. It does not give his government much time to live, which should end in 2026. “There is a sector of the extreme right-he says – that since the beginning of the Castillo government has the sole objective of overthrowing him, however and under any method, legal or illegal. However, now what we are seeing is a demand for the resignation or impeachment of the president by Congress that cuts across citizens across the political spectrum, the right, the center and the left. There is a public reaction of boredom against Castillo. This cabinet is like a life jacket for the government, but it’s a patched life jacket, very precarious. All the cracks, cracks, occurred and deepened with the disastrous cabinet of Valer have not been closed and in the face of any major problem the government will collapse. I believe that by the end of the year Castillo will no longer be president.”