The Peruvian Congress gave a vote of confidence to the new ministerial cabinet appointed by President Pedro Castillo, which restructured its administration in early October in search of governability. The decision was approved in a session of the Legislative on Thursday (4).
After ten hours of debate, 68 parliamentarians approved the cabinet (only 2 more than the minimum necessary), while 56 rejected it and 1 of them abstained.
​The session included the presentation of the government plan of each folder and an appeal from the new prime minister, Mirtha Vázquez, for the decision not to be postponed. “We are stuck in a problem that does not let us start the government and we need to start acting. Peru needs this approval.”
Voting began on October 25th, but at the time the session was interrupted with the announcement in the plenary of the death of deputy Fernando Herrera Mamani, from Perú Libre (same subtitle as Castillo). The congressman died at home, of a heart attack, hours after feeling ill in the Congress building.
The ruling party split after Castillo’s changes to his team — a measure taken precisely because of threats by Congress to ask for the impeachment of the previous cabinet, approved at the end of August with 73 votes after two long sessions. With names considered radical, from the left wing of Perú Libre, the ministry was criticized by the center and the right, in the political spectrum, and in sectors of civil society. Many names were directly linked to the leader of the party, Vladimir Cerrón, an admirer of Chavismo.
Castillo’s changes bring members of the country’s more traditional and moderate left into the cabinet. Peru Libre reacted, with its leaders warning from the first moment that they would vote against. In the end, the party caucus was divided, but the ministry was approved by Congress.
One of the obstacles to approval was the presence of Luis Barranzuela at the Ministry of Interior. Cerrón’s lawyer, he faces a corruption lawsuit and has been attacked by the opposition. The politician was forced to resign on Tuesday (2), after holding a party at home — these events are prohibited by a decree from the Interior Ministry itself, to contain the advance of the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 200,000 people in Peru .
The new head of the ministry is former prosecutor Avelino Guillén, 67, who was known to have prosecuted former president Alberto Fujimori in 2009 – the politician was sentenced to 25 years in prison for humanitarian violations. In a social network, Castillo welcomed the arrival of the new minister and said that his knowledge, experience and trajectory will allow “to continue fighting crime in the country”.
Another name that the Legislature doesn’t like very much, but ended up remaining, is the head of Development and Social Inclusion, Dina Boluarte, investigated for money laundering and illegal campaign financing. On Sunday (31), when she was temporarily in charge of presidential dispatches, Boluarte promulgated a text that suspends the holding of primaries for regional and municipal elections in 2022.
The decision was criticized by the Vice President of Congress, Lady Camones, of the right-wing Alliance for Progress. “It is regrettable that Boluarte is promulgating a norm that is a sabotage of democratic rules,” the congresswoman wrote on a social network.
Perú Libre currently occupies a minority of 27 of the 130 seats in Congress. The other parties also voted with the bench divided.
The approval is a victory for Mirtha Vázquez, a center-left lawyer who is considered moderate and does not belong to Peru Libre. Chosen to be Guido Bellido Ugarte’s replacement, she spent the last few days in dialogue with the leaders of various parties to try to reach a consensus for governability, something that was not achieved by her predecessor. Ugarte, who returned to Parliament, it must be said, voted to reject the new cabinet.
The new prime minister stresses that a new constitution, as Castillo had promised in the campaign, is not a priority for the country, and that efforts must now be focused on vaccination and economic recovery.
Economy Minister Pedro Francke, another moderate who does not enjoy Cerrón’s sympathies, also ended up holding the post.
This Thursday, Castillo celebrated on social media the approval of the new cabinet. “With the vote of confidence of the Congress, we will continue to fight tirelessly for the changes that the people need. We are the government that promotes the social demand and that bets on the development of the regions. With unity and consensus, we will succeed”, he wrote.
Several lawmakers from the ruling party were critical during the session. One of them, Bernardo Quito, said: “We cannot let a leftist government continue with neoliberal policies. It is important to be coherent with what we defend during the campaign.”
“Peru has had a president for 100 days who hides when the potatoes burn, 100 days of destruction for our homeland. We have a president who brings us to a sad end, because he is setting the economy on fire,” said Patricia Chirinos, from Avanza PaÃs, in reference to the leftist Castillo’s term of office.
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