Diego Bazán: “President Pedro Castillo should have been vacated a long time ago” | INTERVIEW

The congressman of Avanza Pais, Diego Bazán, spoke with Infobae about the economic and social crisis in our country and believes that President Pedro Castillo should be vacated.

In the plenary session of the Congress, Pedro Castillo's exhortation to resign was asked, how do you analyze this situation?

The situation in the country is quite complicated. I have been clear from the beginning, for me there are only two options: resignation or vacancy. In this regard, we will continue to ask from the Avanza País bench for the resignation of Mr. Castillo. We know that vacancy is a difficult path. We do not have the 87 votes, but there is the initiative to modify it through a bill in order to reduce the number of votes needed from 87 to 78, which I think is an important number, taking into account the history of the Constitutional Court's exhortation.

When do you provide for the change in the number of votes that will lead to the vacancy of Pedro Castillo?

I believe that for it to be a sustainable and successful issue it must be multi-party. I hope to speak with the other benches in the next few days and reach a consensus on this issue.

For the ordinary citizen who does not know what an exhortation to the resignation of Pedro Castillo means, what is next?

Constitutionally, should the resignation occur, we expect the congruence and consequence of Mrs. Dina Boluarte; on several occasions she has mentioned that she does not intend to remain president. What follows is the assumption of the president of the Congress and we must remember that her role is to call elections immediately and I am very sure that is the first thing she will do. It would be very healthy for the country if the political class was renewed.

People are tired of the usual politicians.

We are a mostly young bench and we will continue to work consistently. We have never changed our line and from the beginning we have done political oversight and control, which are the two fundamental things for the country at the moment.

And is it that Pedro Castillo's future with his bad decisions has not been favoring the country?

The president should have been vacated a long time ago. Unfortunately, there is no political maturity for some parliamentarians to make decisions. We must prioritize the interests of the country rather than the interests of our personal or our benches.

If Pedro Castillo left the presidency, who would take office would be Dina Boluarte, does the opposition think he is the right person to assume the reins of the country?

I give you a rather personal position, it is not the position of my bench. I think that the best thing that can happen to the country right now is that the president and vice-president resign and that the president of Congress (María del Carmen Alva) calls elections immediately. I think that this is how we would get out of this crisis, since there is currently no legitimacy of either Congress or the president.

A consensus was reached to exempt basic necessities from IGV. Do you think that will give Peruvian families peace of mind?

We have reached a point where the Congress of the Republic has to do the work that is due to Pedro Castillo. These tax issues should have been resolved by the president. But I think he is pursuing a strategy to make his ministers look bad and thus distracts the population and the media, who are focusing on regrettable phrases like the one that Premier Aníbal Torres said about Hitler. The culprits are now intended to be the ministers when the absolute responsibility lies with the president because he is the one who elects them. I promoted the censorship of Condori as Minister of Health, in the hope that they will put a minister who agrees to the position and, instead, they put someone related to the government. This shows that Castillo has no idea how to run the country and lacks ideas to change things by insisting on his mistakes.

And it took a week to elect the new Minister of Health.

We are still in a pandemic situation and I have not only complained about COVID-19 vaccines, but about other health-related issues such as rubella, measles, influenza because they are stopping immunization in other regions of the country. A fourth very hard wave may come that can affect us Peruvians. This is the product of the president's neglect to appoint a minister. We have had eight days without Minister of Health and that shows that Pedro Castillo is interested in the health of all Peruvians two cucumbers.

This Congress has a lot of criticism and does not enjoy the trust of the population, what would you say to Peruvians who are disappointed in its administration?

I do a mea culpa. There are congressmen who apparently have personal interests and prioritize it before the country. Obviously we have not been transparent in many things and since Congress is a collective body, because of the mistake of a legislator, we are all crossed out. The situation in the country is not a product of Congress but of Pedro Castillo's mistakes, who persists in placing people who have no capacity or knowledge about how things are handled in the Government. Here the president should have been prosecuted, but he enjoys immunity of his own because he is president, but the Prosecutor's Office has to speed up investigations and find the person responsible because there is a wave of corruption around him.

Did you ever talk to the president and let him see how his management is going?

We have been quite consistent as a bench and Avanza Pais did not meet with Pedro Castillo. In addition, we did not want to participate in the last meeting in Congress, which, in particular, seemed like a show to me because no proposal could be landed for the benefit of the country. And the president left the session early leaving his ministers not to bind or untie.

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