The President of Peru, Dina Boluarte, in a speech to the country this Saturday.LUIS IPARRAGUIRRE/PERU PRESIDENC (Portal)
Pedro Castillo called his employees compañeros or compañeras. The most humble extraction president Peru has had in its history was relaxed in his treatment. He didn’t want to imitate the pomp of his predecessors, who saw themselves as characters from the history books and began to speak as if someone were setting their words in stone. However, Castillo treated his Vice President Dina Boluarte like a doctor. It was a way to show respect for his level of study, but also to distance him.
Castillo is now in custody for rebellion and Boluarte is taking his place. The ousted president calls his successor a traitor, a usurper, a puppet of the right. No one expected a close friendship to develop between them, but it didn’t go that far. Boluarte, 60, has reached the pinnacle of his political career in very strange circumstances after Castillo publicly committed hara-kiri and self-delivered a goal that had absolutely no chance of succeeding.
His best political moment came at the worst moment for the country. The protests that have grown since Castillo was ousted surround his government. Two ministers have turned their backs on him for suppressing the marches, which have already claimed the lives of 22 people. According to a survey by the Institute for Peruvian Studies (IEP), only 29% of Peruvians agree that she took over as head of state. The call for immediate parliamentary elections is universal. Nothing is easy for Peru’s first female president. And it only lasts 10 days.
Boluarte comes from the city of Chalhuanca, in one of the southern departments that have recently risen to protest the political crisis. Not even from his land does the breath of his neighbors reach him. In Apurímac, their region, they are declaring civil disobedience and accusing the President of laughing at their martyrs when they refer to the seven young people killed by gunfire from the armed forces.
Castillo and Boluarte hail from the Peruvian provinces, but from two different worlds. He is a farmer who, as a teenager, sold ice cream from a cart in the poorest neighborhoods of Lima. What the capitalists call a cholo. Boluarte would be placed in the Misti category, which defines the province’s upper-middle class, because of her status as a lawyer and the daughter of a family with more opportunities thanks to herding cattle. In a video that has been circulating on social media these days, residents of Tambobamba, a district in their region, have accused her of being the daughter of landowners.
Those who know her say she never saw Castillo as a capable politician, and even more that she never believed in him. It is more modern, with more progressive ideas related to feminism, immigration or minority rights. They had belonged to the same party, Peru Libre, but it was more in tune with Verónika Mendoza, a young French-born anthropologist who for a time came across as the white horse of a new left. Boluarte did not calculate the Castillo phenomenon, which has grown in cities and regions far from the closed Lima political circuit, to which she feels closest, if not fully enclosed.
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She is not to be seen in any of the campaign photos. Hers with Castillo was almost a marriage of convenience. She defines herself as someone with a lot of character who has weathered difficult moments in her life, such as her divorce. At times she felt very alien in the previous government. In August, during the inauguration of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in Bogotá, she told some groups that she was very concerned about the corruption cases surrounding Castillo – 54 investigations by the prosecutor – that she didn’t know what was going on. He foresaw a catastrophe.
Boluarte has recognized the difficult task ahead of him in recent days as he decided to take over the presidency just hours after Castillo’s arrest. He promised, cheering in Congress, to rule the country until the end of his term in 2026. It was just a mirage. Protests in the hinterland, coupled with general political anger and disenchantment, promptly changed their minds and announced snap elections. Now Congress has to set a date, but there’s no progress on that side yet. She turns against the parliamentarians, which means she has already done everything in her power. “83% of the Peruvian people want early elections, don’t make excuses,” he rebuked them.
This Saturday dawned sunny in Lima, a rarity. The Presidency announced a speech to the nation. Since no one in Peru knows exactly what is happening or will happen, any movement sparks rumours. It must be remembered that 10 days ago, in a message to the country, the then-President attempted to carry out a self-coup that no one could have foreseen. The country is now living under a state of emergency, which empowers the armed forces to repel protests. This is how Christmas will be. There is a night-time curfew in 15 inland regions. Dozens have already died in clashes between the military and police.
The President sounded energetic, somewhat defiant. If anyone thought they could quit, they denied any possibility of leaving early. Instead, he called a ceasefire. “I say to my brothers: Didn’t they see me on the campaign trail? I’m no different than this 2021 election, I don’t understand why the violence is in the streets. I wasn’t trying to be here, I was protecting President Castillo as best I could. At this point, he knows that it is wiser to approach the land tutor than to celebrate his fall from grace. For many Peruvians who voted for him en masse and made him president, Castillo is a victim of the political elites who torpedoed his government from day one. For them, Boluarte already belongs to this group.
She has decided to give her full support to the military. In his speech, he neither questioned a possible excess of violence nor the promise to investigate the deaths. He said he cried with the mothers of the young people who died, but dismissed the “violent groups” who create so much “terror and horror” with contempt. When he finished his speech, he gave the floor to the army commander, who continued in the same vein, accusing some “very bad Peruvians” of causing chaos.
What happens from now on is unknown. The president tries to avoid public anger by saying if she’s there, it’s because she had no choice. She even claims that she tried to advise Castillo during his months in government and that he didn’t listen to her. If so, he says he would still be president.
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