Pedro Castillo: The ghost of the presidential vacancy that haunts him since the first day of his government

A few hours after Pedro Castillo Terrones assumed the presidency of the Republic, since Congress, the ghost of the presidential vacancy was already taking shape and was an option for opposition benches that reject the presence of the professor, rondero and union leader in the presidential chair.

Recall that when she was barely three days in office, parliamentarian Adriana Tudela, from the Avanza País bench, said on August 1 that it was likely that a motion to remove Castillo will be pushed. “I think vacancy is a possibility,” she said at the time. Around the same date, Jorge Montoya, from Popular Renewal, stated that the presidential vacancy was “an option at the end of the list” and that he hoped that the president would not support the idea of convening a Constituent Assembly .

On the other hand, the marches of a sector of citizens, which previously called for the nullity of elections, now changed their printed posters and demanded a vacancy. However, the little strength that these demonstrations could have was diluted by the changes of cabinet, although in November of that year, some journalistic complaints about the alleged unofficial meetings of Pedro Castillo at the house of the Sarratea passage, in Lynx, again encouraged the ghost of vacancy.

FIRST ATTEMPT TO VACANCY

In November, Patricia Chirinos announced in plenary that she would submit a vacancy motion. Initially, it did not receive the support of the parties opposing Castillo, who considered that the time was not yet. Despite this, on the day of the admission vote, the benches of Renewal Popular, Avanza Pais, Fuerza Popular and a few legislators from other political stores added 46 votes in favor of the admission of the motion without achieving its objective (52 votes), as 76 had voted against and there were 4 abstentions.

“As we have seen things, this failed attempt at vacancia is not going to be the last. Clearly, continuing with that is on the opposition's agenda. The problem is that we are at a point where, as long as you have the votes, the rest doesn't matter. The causes and motivations behind vacancy are matters of interpretation. The allies that have helped the Government in this first test (APP, AP, PP) are not the most reliable. They are the same benches that at some point supported Vizcarra and the next day they stuck the dagger in him. It is very likely that vacancia will end up happening again,” said Paolo Sosa-Villagarcía, one of the authors of the book El profe: How Pedro Castillo became president of Peru and what will happen next, in interview with Infobae.

SECOND VACANCY ATTEMPT

On March 14 of this year, the ghost of vacancia appeared again, but this time it did get the votes for approve the motion (76 in favour, 41 against and one abstention) which obliges the president or his lawyer to come to Parliament today, Monday 28 March to answer the questions against them.

Although the congressmen of the opposition benches that promote the vacancy themselves have acknowledged that reaching the 87 votes required in Congress to vacate Castillo is unlikely, in in recent days, they have tried to be more confident in their objective and have even said that they will reach the required number of votes.

In addition, he considered that the opposition today is divided into up to three groups: a radical opposition with parliamentarians from Avanza Pais and Renewal Popular; a second group with some members of the Popular Force who would even favor Pedro Castillo staying the five years (including Ernesto Bustamante); the third group would be made up of a sector of legislators from Popular Action, Alliance for Progress and Podemos Peru who “are and are not with the government”.

“The problem is that there is no real opposition, and there are disputes between them,” he said.

HOW MANY MORE VACANCIES?

In order to promote a presidential vacancy motion, only 26 signatures are required, which means that the plenary has to vote whether or not the vacancy motion is accepted, for which an average of 52 votes are required, a number that is not very difficult for the opposition to achieve. This means that it is more than likely that in the future more presidential vacancies will continue to be promoted in Congress, even if, for now, they do not reach the 87 votes necessary for it to take place and Castillo is forced to leave power.

Although the votes are not available today, Eloy Marchán believes that it is possible that this will change: “Castillo is a president who makes many mistakes, amoral, who does not differentiate between public and private, and who has a weakness to surround himself with mediocrity. I think that sooner or later the vacancy will take place.”

He added that what could cause Congress to end up opting, in the future, for vacancy is the development of the case involving lobbyist Karelim López, which is at an early stage, but which would make those closest to Castillo ( Bruno Pacheco, and his nephews) testify against him. By then, the ghost of vacancy could mutate to executioner.

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