By Miguel Lamas, leader of the Bolivian ARPT party and the IWU-FI
\n28 July 2021
\nFinally, over a month after the run-off election and after attempts by Keiko Fujimori and the right-wing to disregard the result, the electoral authority proclaimed Castillo\u2019s victory for the presidency. Will it be a government in favour of the working people?<\/p>\n
Castillo takes office during a deep economic and health crisis. Peru is one country in the world with the highest death toll because of the pandemic. Its capitalist economic model – subject to imperialism – of privatisation, corruption, predatory multinational mining and destruction of labour laws, has left three out of ten people in poverty and over 70% of workers in the informal market.<\/p>\n
Castillo led the three-month national teachers\u2019 strike in 2017 against the Kutzinski government for the teachers\u2019 statute. People saw him as an alternative for change in favour of working people. Based on his union leadership, his peasant background, and the disappointment of millions in the bosses\u2019 politicians.
\nPedro Castillo had over 80% of the votes in the south, in the peasant sectors that fought the hardest against the mining multinationals that destroy their agriculture.<\/p>\n
There was an electoral swing to the left of millions of workers fed up with the bosses\u2019 corrupt governments that serve the multinationals and themselves.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Castillo proposes to govern with the big capitalists<\/strong><\/p>\n But Castillo will not meet his voters\u2019 expectations, he represents a reformist left that will reproduce a new government of class conciliation or centre-left. As has already happened with Ch\u00e1vez-Maduro in Venezuela, Lula-Dilma in Brazil, or Evo Morales in Bolivia.<\/p>\n Castillo\u2019s first concrete announcement that he will receive his teacher\u2019s salary as the president went down very well with the people.<\/p>\n However, it also shows that he is preparing to govern in agreement with the big capitalists. His economic adviser, and most likely Minister of Finance, is Pedro Francke, who is on excellent terms with big business. Francke says they will promote \u201cthe popular economy with markets\u201d, which \u201cis a model of free action by private enterprise, as we have had until now, but with a greater redistributive component by the state\u201d (https:\/\/www.bnamericas.com\/en\/news\/business-welcomes-perus-president-elect).<\/p>\n At the height of the economic crisis, he says that \u201cthe free action of private enterprise\u201d (including the mining companies that are devastating Peruvian agriculture) is compatible with \u201credistribution\u201d. Because of this model of governing with the capitalists in Bolivia during Evo Morales\u2019 fourteen years in office, prices were very favourable for its gas and mineral exports, but there was no change in the economic structure. And as in Peru, over 70% are in the informal economy, while the transnationals and the oligarchs take the wealth and the country is also going through a deep economic crisis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let the capitalists pay for the crisis!<\/strong><\/p>\n One of Castillo\u2019s promises, and popular demand, is to change the constitution made by Fujimori\u2019s dictatorship with a constituent assembly. One slogan shouted in the streets of Lima by thousands of young people was \u201cFor the constituent assembly, Castillo president\u201d. But now, given his attempts to agree with the right-wing, which has a parliamentary majority, the constituent assembly may be forgotten.<\/p>\n The political crisis in Peru is still open, and the working people who gave Castillo the victory will probably mobilise for their urgent demands.<\/p>\n The United Workers Party (IWU-FI) and the Socialist Alternative of Ayacucho are holding their merger congress on 28 and 29 July. They were part of the campaign calling for a vote for Pedro Castillo against the candidacy of Keiko Fujimori. But in the campaign, and now, they have no confidence in the new government. They have an independent policy and call to rely only on mobilisation and TO FIGHT for jobs, health and education. Not for the IMF and the capitalists! Tax the enormous fortunes now!<\/p>\n \u201cTo defeat the model and the starvation system, let\u2019s support the mobilisation and struggle for a workers\u2019, popular and peasant solution so that the crisis is not paid for by the workers and the peoples, but by the capitalists!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Miguel Lamas, leader of the Bolivian ARPT party and the IWU-FI 28 July 2021 Finally, over a month after the run-off election and after attempts by Keiko Fujimori and the right-wing to disregard the result, the electoral authority proclaimed Castillo\u2019s victory for the presidency. Will it be a government in favour of the working […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6911,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions\/6911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHe also explains that his model is like that of Evo Morales in Bolivia: \u201cThe Bolivian economy has a good tax component, but in oil and hydrocarbon production the transnational companies continue. In the industrial and agricultural sector, there are also private companies and there is no price control.<\/p>\n