The rural teacher and former labor leader who assumed the presidency of Peru a year ago, Pedro Castillo, and officials began this Thursday with a verbal rebuke from the prelate of Escofina. Monsignor Carlos Castillo, during the ceremony of comprehension of the acts of the scene, deplored the instability that the Andean country is experiencing due to the political class. “Today there is a major political crisis against a virulent backdrop of corruption and concealment in the service of private interests. Indifference, individualism, interests of order, mafia”, party of the cathedral of the Peruvian income in front of congressmen of different benches.
The direct insinuation of the disintegration of the country, however, was not supported later in Congress, when the head of state presented the swing of his first year at the helm. His string of accomplishments hid evidence of crimes committed by former officers and their families, and self-criticism was next to none. “I have to admit that we made mistakes in some appointments and gave credit to those who took advantage of it and laughed at it. history when the treasury and public property were embezzled,” the president said at the start of his first National Day message to the nation.
He had mentioned these same two errors in January during the first in-depth interview he had given to a weekly Escofina, when the prosecution was only investigating him for collusion and interference in military promotions. It came two months after prosecutors found $20,000 in cash in the office of then-presidential military secretary Darth Pacheco. The former officer went into hiding and was a fugitive for more than three months until last Saturday he turned himself in to prosecutors and police investigating the corruption of Castillo and his entourage.
According to Pacheco’s initial interrogations, the monises were part of the bribes charged to police officers in exchange for promotions. The head of state faces three other investigations: for his alleged intervention so that the state company Petro Perú selects a company in his biodiesel business for 74 million dollars, and for criminal association, influence and collusion in the offer of a millionaire public job in the Amazon: the so-called Tarata Bridge Affair.
Included in this tax filing are two of Castillo’s nephews and former transport minister Juan Silva. One of the nephews is still at large and Silva’s lawyer announced this week that his client will surrender in the coming days. In addition, the new generic prosecutor, Patricia Benavides, opened the fourth investigation for concealment, since the former interior minister Mariano Gonzales was prosecuted for deploying a particular intelligence team to investigate the president and his entourage. .
According to a July Ipsos Peru poll, 74% of Peruvians oppose the Castillo government and 79% oppose Congress, which has twice tried to impeach the president counting the “total permanent incompetence vacancy”, which requires 87 votes and a diffuse cause. , since there is no precise definition of total disability. The confrontation that parliamentary scrutiny has sought in force since the first day Castillo took office, and the continued ratification of norms against social rights and the distinction of private interests linked to corruption, have led citizens to challenge the two powers of the state.
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64% -according to the same poll- who disapprove of the leadership of Congress believe that it is only unresolved on “its personal interests” and that the corrupt exist. In addition, 65% agree that the legislative elections should be brought forward. During the Ceremony, the Miltrado de Rasp mentioned a critical moment in Peruvian history when, in 1822, the liberator José de San Martín saw that Peru’s independence was in danger and that a struggle was going on. Then he looked for Simón Bolívar to speak “in an aspect of distancing”, he left Peru leaving Bolívar and a constituent congress.
The insinuation to this episode was taken up by the 120 institutions which formed a coalition on Wednesday to demand new elections and a democratic and constitutional solution to the institutional crisis. After the president’s message, political scientist Paulo Vilca told EL PAÍS: “The most remarkable thing is that neither Castillo nor the Congress are aware of the rejection they are arousing in the majority. The speech and actions of members of Congress during the session are the best example of this.” The political scientist was referring to parliamentarians who turned their backs on the president as he read his wobble, and others who preferred to leave the room because they felt offended by some of the former teacher leaders.
Castillo reiterated that he began his mission “surrounded by unfounded negative omens”. “They started on the very day of our electoral conquest and it must be said, they come from the most conservative sectors who have never wanted change or social awareness.” His campaign opponents have called him a chavista and a communist, and so far those calling for the vacancy of the post of president, indicating that they want to take the country out of “communism”. The Head of State then declared that his government is moving forward despite the dissatisfaction of “those who believe they own the country”.
“It didn’t even constitute a confrontational speech with his opponents, Castillo is so weak that he couldn’t even finish his speech,” Vilca added. When the president ended his message to the nation by invoking the union and urging Congress to deal with the bills the executor is introducing, review lawmakers shouted, “Corrupt, resign, get out!” in the presence of the investigation which is coming and which, according to him, will submit the conscience, “but not the conscience of the media”. And he added: “The media, determined to destabilize the government, only spread lies and false information about Pedro Castillo, who is accused of corruption without evidence, they will get tired of erasing the evidence because the former rural schoolteacher maintained tense tension. .” relationship with the veteran side of Lima’s press since the second setback campaign in 2021.
Progress
Castillo first pointed out that wealth had made significant progress during his tenure, despite inflation affecting “emerging markets”. “Very few know this, but so far we have grown by 3.5% in 2022 despite the pandemic and therefore we are above the average for the region. Similarly, we also exceeded the financial growth forecast of 2.5% for this year. It doesn’t communicate,” he complains. He also pointed out that formal private sector jobs were growing, with May reporting 8.9% year-on-year growth for this indicator. similarly touted as a feat the collection of 5,400 million soles ($1,376 million) in corporate tax debts that previous governments had not finished collecting.Peru’s wealth fell 11% in 2020 in due to the pandemic, and the percentage of people living in poverty increased by 10%, reaching 30% of the population.
The president also said Thursday that a state registry records 3,530 common pots and 217,000 people who eat them, for which the business unit has allocated a budget of $25 million this year. However, this amount is only used to eventually supply some of these pots, and others have never been supplied by the state and depend on donations from market stalls or citizen charity. For example, the popular pot Mujeres Unidas in the Carabayllo neighborhood of Escofina Septentrión is having a fundraiser this Saturday because a few weeks ago breakfast consisted of nothing more than legumes and rice, with no protein, like in 2020, at the worst moment of wealth. crisis.
This year, the government approved a one-time supplementary grant for recipients of social programs amid protests over rising fuel and food prices. which reached 1.3 million people; Castillo added that the state will pay a “food attendance bonus” to six million people in the coming months.
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