By: Juan De la Puente
The idea of a pact between politicians is always suggestive, and the first questions when this happens are two: if it is a democratic pact, and if the purpose is to move forward.
That is in doubt in the recent pact – also read consensus or truce, as has been said – processed in a few hours between some parliamentary factions violently confronted on various issues on the public agenda. The first impression is that It would be, essentially, an extreme non-aggression pact, an agreement to dismantle the war of denunciations and censorship that had led to the revelation of the magazine Hildebrandt in its thirteen on the meeting in a hotel in Lima last February 9, where the vacancy of the president castle.
On the skin of things, this would make sense. After several weeks, Congress lost the initiative and as a result of the revelation of the Casa Andina Hotel, it was put against the wall and shown to public opinion as a coup Parliament. As a result of this uncomfortable situation, new legislative secrets are revealed, especially one: there are no votes for a new vacancy. It can also be seen that, after defeating the vacancy in November, the vacant opposition has no plan B and there is a debate between resignation, vacancy, constitutional accusation as a way to suspend Castillo, reforms for new causes of presidential vacancy, and treason against the country.
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The speed of the pact has deeper reasons. One of them is the Ipsos Peru survey of February 13. Faced with the open question “Regardless of what the Constitution indicates, in the event that they resign or are vacated peter castle Y Dina Boluartewhat would you prefer to happen?”, 74% responded: that general elections be called, for President, Vice Presidents and Congressmen.
The number is thick and unexpected, mainly for Congress. It is true that in a crisis of the magnitude of the current one, public opinion is constantly rearranged, although that 74% is consistent and very difficult to reverse.
This result is a strategic defeat for the parliamentary majority. It is the end of the efforts to be different and better than the Government. Until that percentage, Congress had been organized as an alternative force in the scheme of a divided government: there the inept, corrupt and extremist government, and here we, efficiency, transparency and democracy.
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“Everyone leaves!”
Public opinion has diluted the balance of powers format that was organized from the Congress, uncooperative and ready to break. He rejects the Castillo Government with a growing majority and accepts the possibility that he will leave power. However, he wants a third round, a new election because he hopes to get rid of both powers from a simple reasoning, why should this mess last 5 years?
That they all leave reflects hope. It is likely that, as happened in Peru in 2000, Argentina in 2002 and Bolivia in 2019/2020, in the end not everyone or no one leaves. However, it is a pure state of mind; after almost a decade of general crisis, it is the very Peruvian version of Zygmunt Bauman’s liquid modernity.
These data indicate that we are not facing a classic political competition, in which the points that the Executive loses are won by the opposition. The sequence is different: the deterioration of one drags the other. The virus circulates in the system and in permanent contact – the everyday crisis – contagion occurs.
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At what point, exactly, did Congress become infected? I think it was when public opinion was convinced that the expectations of change and democratic consensus that the Government dropped, were not picked up by a Parliament that imitated the Executive in indifference.
Could it be different? I think so, if the radical opposition had not been seduced by the illusion of an express vacancy and if the singing voice of Congress had not been expropriated by a group of strident, abusive and rowdy legislators. The parliamentary vedetismo had already lost the 2016-2019 Congress.
The agreement, that type of agreement, seems late and we do not know how long it will last. It should not be forgotten that this pact is not the first of these days. Castillo had already made a secret pact with parliamentary benches with the purpose of surviving, that is, gaining confidence in the cabinet. The new parliamentary agreement of these days will make both the groups that support the cabinet and those that reject it creak, if the Government or Congress do not set as their purpose a different commitment, democratic and to advance, of consensus for the change. ❖
