Peru’s new president: “Companions, we say basta!”

He is a left-wing trade unionist who takes conservative views: With Castillo, an outsider was elected president in Peru. For some he is a bearer of hope, for others a nightmare.

“This is where we grow our maize,” says Lilia Paredes, “there we grow potatoes, beans and peas.” Chickens cackle, a few cows graze in the background. The modest farmhouse with a tin roof is located on a hill, a little away from the hamlet of Chugur, embedded in the green mountain landscape of the Peruvian Andes. It’s not exactly the typical home of a future presidential family.

Lilia Paredes says of her husband Pedro Castillo:

I am very moved, because who would have thought that one of us could get so high here from the province. He is a very intelligent man and very humble at that.

Castillo always appears in the traditional straw sombrero, wears wool poncho and sandals made from old car tires. The 51-year-old comes from a poor background and grew up in a family of eleven here in Cajamarca, where 500 years ago Atahualpa, the last Inca ruler, was executed by the conqueror Pizarro and the Spanish colonial empire began.

Poor despite the gold mine

Today, Cajamarca is home to the largest gold mine in South America and is still one of the poorest regions in the country with 14 percent illiteracy. Miguel Mendoza, a former classmate of Castillo, says:

The fact that Mr Castillo is where he is today is the result of the state neglect of our regions. Pedro knows the suffering here, he knows what it is like to have to walk three or four hours to the next school.

Fight against guerrillas “Shining Path”

Castillo was a teacher in village schools – and also “Rondero”. This is the name of the farmers’ self-defense groups in the Andean region. Founded first against cattle thieves, they later defended the rural population against the terror of the Maoist guerrilla “Shining Path”.

Mendoza says he worries when Castillo is labeled a terrorist, one of the “Shining Path”. “He was always someone who fought violence, who brought order, who never let himself be bought,” said the former classmate. “That is why we believe that he is the one who can advance this country that has so much wealth and so much poverty at the same time.”

Symbol of hope for indigenous people

For years, Peru was booming thanks to its wealth of raw materials. Poverty also fell, but inequality and nepotism did not. Most of the political elite are involved in corruption scandals, Castillo is not.

If anything can be learned from this pandemic, Castillo said, it is that it has exposed how precarious and insecure this old and corrupt state is. “Those who call themselves Democrats are only for themselves, for a bunch of oligarchs.”

During the election campaign, he called for an end to the neoliberal economic model, nationalization of mining, redistribution – in short, a radical system change in a country that has been divided into two parts for centuries.

Enough, companions, we say that’s enough, brothers! We want a constituent assembly to work out a constitution so that the country’s resources are dedicated to the Peruvians.

In the countryside, among the indigenous people, Castillo became a symbol of hope.

Nightmare of the elites

The elites see in him the Peruvian Chavez, the communist nightmare, the downfall of modern Peru. Opponents meet almost every day for troubled demos in Lima, speak of electoral fraud, although there is no evidence of this. “I have to defend freedom and democracy. We are against this communism that is being imposed on us from other countries in order to undermine our freedom,” says Roberto Garcia.

Castillo’s political experience is largely limited to leading a national teachers’ strike in 2017. The news channels did not even have a photo when he emerged from the first ballot in April as the surprise winner of the Marxist party “Peru Libre” – with less than 20 percent of the Voices mind you.

Left, but conservative positions

The left takes extremely conservative and authoritarian views when it comes to abortion or gay marriage. But he is by no means a political heavyweight, a charismatic caudillo, that is, a leader, says investigative journalist Gustavo Gorriti.

He has a party behind him, Peru Libre, which is not his, but follows the party founder Vladimir Cerrón, who was unable to run because of a corruption scandal. Cerrón is very close to Venezuela and has openly defended Maduro and Ortega. There are very radical positions in the party, and Castillo is weak on the other hand – that will lead to conflicts, if not ruptures, and poses a very serious risk to democracy.

Castillo’s base doesn’t even make up 20 percent of the population. In the 130-seat Congress, his party has only 37 members. They were chosen not because of, but in spite of the radical discourse.

At a distance from Chavismus

Castillo also seems to notice this, he distanced himself from Venezuela’s chavism. His advisor Pedro Francke declared that there would be no nationalization, expropriation, general price control or anything like that. “Yes, there should be change, because we want the economic situation to improve for everyone, including the lower classes and in rural areas.” That is her government’s priority.

The election made it clear how divided Peru is. City and country, rich and poor, left and right. And the pandemic has deepened the rifts again. The most urgent task will be to build bridges, to facilitate a dialogue. The teacher and farmer Castillo will have to convince a majority in the country that he is the one who can replant Peruvian soil.