Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday reinforced his offer of political asylum to deposed Peruvian leader Pedro Castillo. “Our doors are open to the Peruvian president, his family and anyone who feels persecuted,” said AMLO, as he is known.
Obrador also urged new general elections, in an indirect attack on Dina Boluarte, the former vice president sworn in by Parliament after Castillo’s failed coup attempt.
Castillo has been detained since December 7, accused of rebellion and conspiracy. Last week, he was sentenced to 18 months in pre-trial detention. The populist politician denies all charges against him and claims to be rightfully president of Peru, calling his successor a usurper.
Obrador was involved in the crisis from the beginning. That’s because, after seeing his failed coup plan, Castillo called the Mexican president telling him that he was heading to the country’s embassy in Lima — the journey was interrupted after the police called the politician’s own security team and ordered the driver to deviated from the planned route, taking the then president to the city hall, where he was under police custody.
Mexico began its official proposal to grant asylum the day after he was ousted. Since then, AMLO has made a series of public statements in defense of the former president —thus contesting Dina’s legitimacy in power.
As soon as she took office, the Mexican leader said that his government would wait a few days to recognize her and declared that Castillo had been the victim of harassment since his victory in the elections and that his political opponents “do not accept that he governs”. The Peruvian chancellery even summoned the Mexican embassy in Lima for this and other speeches, which according to the ministry constituted an attempt to “interfere in Peru’s internal affairs”.
A week later, Mexico signed, along with Argentina, Bolivia and Colombia, a letter that urged Peru to protect Castillo’s human and legal rights — ambiguous, the note did not, however, ask for his return to office.
Despite this campaign in defense of the former Peruvian leader, Obrador said that the process of granting asylum is still ongoing. “A request was made, but it is a bureaucracy that still needs to be fulfilled,” he said. With that, contradicts Dina, who in an interview with a TV program on Sunday (19) confirmed that Mexico had already approved the request for the former leader’s family.
The situation is delicate because the former first lady, Lilia Paredes, is being investigated by the Federal Revenue on suspicion of coordinating a criminal organization alongside her husband. According to Dina, the investigation does not prevent Mexico from granting asylum.
Dina has been dealing with a country in turmoil since taking office. Supporters of Castillo took to the streets to demand his resignation and the release of the former president, as well as the anticipation of general elections, the dissolution of Congress and the creation of a Constituent Assembly.
The scale and violence of the acts, which closed airports and blocked highways across the territory, led the president to declare a state of emergency. The Peruvian Ministry of Health has already recorded 25 deaths in clashes between demonstrators and security forces, most of them in the region south of the Peruvian Andes, where protests were most intense and where Castillo’s electorate was concentrated in past elections. .
Last week, Dina tried to appease the population by proposing to Congress to advance the elections from 2026 to 2023, but was defeated. Parliament should resubmit the project to a vote again this Tuesday (20). According to a recent survey, 83% of the population considers that the anticipation of the election is the only possible way out of the crisis.
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