Francisco Sagasti talks about his new book and also reviews current issues, including the disqualification that Congress intends to impose on him.
The Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations has approved disqualifying him for ten years together with the former Ministers of the Interior, José Eliche and Rubén Vargas. It remains to be seen what will happen in the Permanent Commission and possibly in the Plenary. Is there a political vendetta against him?
I don’t know, I would have to ask those who have raised this constitutional accusation and who have approved it in the subcommittee. We have raised the defenses in February of this year. My lawyers went and I sent my defenses in writing in a 25-page report, responding one by one to each of the accusations. What surprises me a little is that in the new version (of the accusation) that has just reached me these days, which the SAC approved, they repeat what had been said previously and we had already responded, showing the reasons why this accusation it doesn’t make sense.
If they have not received their defense, does it mean that a political decision has already been made?
I prefer not to speculate on the motivations and what other people do, especially those who are members of a subcommittee that is raising an accusation of a constitutional accusation. The retirement of the generals was absolutely constitutional and legal and was done in accordance with the extraordinary renewal procedure so that the Police during the rest of my government function in an adequate and reasonable manner, supporting citizens in the fight against pandemic.
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Salvador del Solar is going through the same thing as you. Martín Vizcarra is already disqualified for matters other than those currently being discussed in the Judiciary. Regardless of whether or not you want to apply, it seems that There is an attempt to remove possible rivals from the race.s. Thinking?
When you see what is happening one after the other, it is a little difficult to escape that conclusion.
Do you confirm that you are not going to apply?
Definitely, Enrique. What happens is that here politicians and all citizens are used to someone saying one thing and doing another. I just turned 80 years old. Campaign until he turns 82 and govern for five years? Look, they have made me better offers to spend the last years of my life.
Do you agree with other observers that what we have now in Peru is no longer a democracy, or would you say it is?
Formally we are still a democracy, but if this onslaught continues and there is not a sufficiently robust response, it is possible that we will reach a level of a totally deteriorated democracy that will make us ask the question you ask. I think we must distinguish between two very clear things that most congressmen and politicians and citizens in general sometimes do not distinguish: legality and legitimacy. Legality implies that established rules are followed, sometimes stretching them, misinterpreting them, but staying within the law. The legitimacy of a political authority implies at least three additional things. First, the consensus, consent and approval of at least a very significant minority of citizens. Secondly, that decisions are made based on the common good, of the entire community, that it is about improving the living conditions of the entire population and not of one group or another with favoritism. Thirdly, that the authorities reinforce democratic institutions, institutionality, and the separation of powers. And the problem we have now is that we can have a Government that was legally elected according to all the rules – despite accusations of fraud that were absurd and totally distorted, to the point that those who cried fraud accept everything that has been said. past- but the big question is: legal, yes, but is it legitimate?
What is the answer?
They do not meet any of the three conditions that I have told you. They do not have the consent and majority consensus of approval, they are not passing laws based on the common good, the well-being of citizens and, third, they are in an accelerated process of demolishing democratic institutions, erasing the division of powers, etc. So it may be legal, but not legitimate. And there the big question is the one you have asked and I think each of us will have to draw our own conclusion.
Does this analysis only involve the Executive? Or also to Congress?
It must be seen very clearly. It covers Congress, the Executive, some other autonomous institutions such as the Ombudsman’s Office, of which we have seen the loss of compass it has had. But it also involves the representatives of illegal economies, a whole range of organizations that are exercising power, not according to what legitimacy requires, that is, with the consent of the citizens, and that is why we see the disapproval that they practically have. all autonomous institutions of the State, with honorable exceptions. To show you a button: for the first time since 1992 we are going to have a fiscal deficit of around 4.5% of GDP. We are returning to the chaos that was generated during the eighties. We are going in a direction in which that second condition, which is to think about the common good, is not met, in addition to demolishing the institutionality.
A few years ago, not many, there was greater optimism for the country. At what point did that change?
I’m old enough to see cycles of arming and disarming. I have seen what you just said several times over the last fifty years. I began to be interested in politics when I was twelve years old with the election of Prado against Lavalle in 1956 and since then I have been following all this. What you just said was what everyone said in the eighties at the worst time of terrorism, that there was no future. We recovered, we got out of it. Then we had the whole authoritarian process and tremendous corruption during the nineties. Instead of asking ourselves when Peru was ruined, what we have to ask ourselves is what we can do to get out of the situation we are in, and that is what I have tried to propose in my latest book.
Titled “Uncertainty”. Why did you give it that title?
I decided to write a book for the general public. I have over thirty academic books and what I tried to capture is what we all feel: uncertainty. And that is why the subtitle is “Five essays to understand our time.” Someone teased me by saying that I should have written seven. I told him no, not seven rehearsals, with five I am at the level I can be at. I have tried to explain a little that we are not alone in this feeling of uncertainty, that it is something regional, global, and that it is the product of a series of changes that have been brewing for a very long time, but that during the last fifty years the thing has accelerated and exploded. If you understand that, you can look for the cracks.
Escape?
And that’s why I quote Leonard Cohen who says that there is always a crack to find where light can sneak in or pass through. The book provides some clues as to how that can be done.
Even reflecting on what his own management was like. He reviews what he considers to be the main achievements of his Government: free elections, vaccination, economic reactivation. It caught my attention that he also mentioned having faced social protests as an achievement, because he could not forget that during his presidency there were three deaths in the context of the agrarian strike. Isn’t it contradictory?
It was terrible. The three deaths were due to the actions of two police officers who did not comply with the established protocol. I say that clearly in the book “Governing the time of crisis”. Anyone who reads it sees what protocol must be followed and at what extreme moment firearms must be used. These two officers did not comply and disobeyed explicit orders. The day after these deaths occurred, early in the morning, you found a message in which these two officers were condemned and made available for investigation. One of them has been convicted of two deaths by the Judiciary. You and the readers can evaluate how reasonably things were handled. I believe that we were able to do what was possible, respecting the right to life and the right to protest, but without interrupting the normal course of other people’s activities.
Would you have wanted to face this agricultural strike in another way?
I don’t know. In the end it turned out the way it could have turned out. We said that it was a first step, that we had to continue with a dialogue between agricultural businessmen and workers. What we achieved in the brief Government of eight months and eleven days is to manage the protests with a minimum of damage and lay the foundations for continued work. That was not done.
This is a context of growing citizen insecurity where the role of the Police is permanently evaluated in public discussion. His Government promoted the last attempt at reform, but it did not advance. A bases commission was installed. Shouldn’t more effort have been put into it?
It was impossible because of the following: remember that we were in the middle of a pandemic. The Police had functions of maintaining public order and they were overwhelmed. There was already a Police reform commission that had been working for a long time and what we did was complete and accelerate the work and during my Government the basic guidelines of the Mariano Santos Plan were given, with a whole series of proposals. It was presented three months before we ended the Government. To think that we were going and implementing that plan was crazy.
In your book you make an interesting comment about your election as president of Congress and therefore as president of the Republic, that deep down you felt that those who elected you, many of them your staunch enemies…
Staunch opponents.
That, you say, they expected your failure.
One has ways. I have been a congressman, I had many friends and well-known members of the Congressional staff who informed me that some congressmen said “look, the situation is so serious that we appointed Sagasti and he is going to fail because he is an intellectual who does not know these things.” and then we come back.” At least there were two or three comments from opposition congressmen who were there.
He also praises moderation as a political quality necessary to generate trust. You consider yourself a moderate.
I try to be, at least. Sometimes one goes…
Sometimes they accuse him of being lukewarm for that, even.
That’s the least of it.
Is it a bad time for moderates? A far-right mob attacked the presentation of one of his books.
I talk about radical moderation, moderation in the sense of listening to everyone. I don’t block, I listen to all opinions and points of view. But then I don’t stop there. When you hear extremist points of view or approaches based on corrupt interests or particular interests, you reject them. There is no contradiction between being moderate to listen to everyone at least once and radical when exposing those who do not want to play according to the rules of the democratic game or are an extremist who wants to impose themselves with blood and fire. Isaiah Berlin said that in the name of tolerance we have the right not to tolerate the intolerant. In that sense you have to be radical, but moderate in the sense of being open to all points of view. What we have had in our country for many years are people who lock themselves into a single point of view and do not want to listen to anything else.
