Peru Libre
President-elect Castillo of the Free Peru party was certified winner with 50.1% of votes to 49.9% for Keiko Fujimori on 20 July 2021, six weeks after the June 6 run-off vote. Polarization among voters, reflected in the narrow margin of victory, and pandemic-related social rifts compound governability risks stemming from a highly fragmented Congress. The new government may need alliances with smaller parties and strong internal party discipline to pass legislation.
The Free Peru platform advocates redrafting the constitution (including the key economic chapter that enshrines free market principles and protects the macroeconomic policy framework), expanding the state’s role in business, changing or annulling concessions and contracts to private firms, significantly increasing taxation of, or nationalizing, strategic sectors (including mining and natural gas), restructuring the national pension system and abolishing flexible labor contracting.
Since the election, Castillo has repeated his pledge to request a national assembly to redraft the constitution, focused debate around the mining sector on taxation, and advocated agricultural support. He has not presented a centrist policy document, unlike former President Humala, who won on a left-wing platform in 2011. But he has sent preliminary signals of policy continuity at the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, ruling out price or currency controls.
Alex Paredes, elected congressman and spokesman for the Peru Libre bench, affirmed 19 July 2021 that in order to convene a Constituent Assembly, one option is to make changes to the 1993 Political Constitution in the Congress of the Republic. In dialogue with Canal N, he indicated that the current Magna Carta does not allow the convening of a Constituent Assembly and that a “communicational element” has been lacking between the Congress of the Republic and the population. “First we would have to modify (the Constitution) to insert the Constituent Assembly, if that is the alternative. If that can be the mechanism to materialize what the population wants, why not do it, " he said. “A communicational element between Congress and the population has been lacking. Can the Constituent Assembly be convened (with the current Constitution)? No, ” Paredes added.
The congressman elected by Avanza País, Alejandro Cavero, affirmed tonight that Peru Libre "is a Trojan horse." After an interview with Guido Bellido, he assured that by not being able to affirm the existence of the Cuban dictatorship, "they are on the same path."
«You have just heard (Guido Bellido), practically justifying the Cuban regime by refusing to call them a dictatorship (...) I have been very concerned that they cannot condemn something as elementary as the Cuban dictatorship, which tells me that they They are going straight down the same path » , he sentenced. In that sense, the elected congressman did not hesitate to assure that his bench would not belong to a board of directors together with Peru Libre , since his only strategy is the presentation of its Constituent Assembly.
The political group Peru Libre , with which Pedro Castillo would become president of the Republic, could be dissolved in the coming years if it is proven that his campaign expenses for the general elections of 2021 would have come from the alleged criminal organization " Los Dinámicos del Centro ”, because it would classify as illegal financing of political parties. This is what the criminal lawyer Carlos Caro points out.
The lawyer explained that for the political group to be dissolved, the members of the leadership leadership of Peru Libre must first be sentenced, which includes its secretary general and founder Vladimir Cerrón , the candidate for the first vice presidency, Dina Boluarte , and the candidate to the presidency Pedro Castillo and with the same resolution the prosecutor in charge of the Los Dinámicos del Centro case would request the disappearance of the party as a legal entity. The sentence for the crime of illicit party financing is eight years, and twelve years if it is aggravated.
“The prosecutor in charge of the case can request the dissolution of the Peru Libre party as requested by Fuerza Popular, and by the Nationalist Party. The first thing that would have to happen is that an investigation be opened against the leadership of the party that is not being investigated and they would have to include Dina Boluarte, Castillo and Cerrón, who is the founder because the crime of illegal party financing is very precise. After incorporating them, you can do the same with Peru Libre , as a legal entity, "said Caro.
However, the criminal prosecutor stressed that this judicial process could last between three to six years to have a conviction and if Castillo were to assume the presidency, the charges against him would be frozen, “but they could merit a vacancy cause because the parallel investigation of the Prosecutor's Office would point out that he arrived at the Palace with money of illicit origin ”.
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