Vladimir Cerrón lashes out against Cardinal Pedro Barreto in the middle of Holy Week for possible change of cabinet

This Holy Week, President Pedro Castillo received Cardinal Pedro Barreto at the Government Palace in two meetings. According to statements by the religious, the formation of a new cabinet would be being analyzed. Rumors are growing stronger about a possible exit from the Aníbal Torres cabinet, and everything indicates that the governing party, Peru Libre, would not be consulted.

Faced with these events, the secretary general of the political group, Vladimir Cerrón, spoke out on Twitter and in the middle of the religious festival lashed out against Cardinal Pedro Barreto.

“Monsignor Pedro Barreto says that the country is about to die, a statement that once again confirms that the clergy are in favor of the conspiracy against the president,” Cerrón wrote in a first tweet. Then he was more concrete and said that if the president is thinking about a new cabinet without knowledge of the Council of Ministers, his bench and his party, and only in complicity with the Church, he would be in a big political error.

Soon after, he added: “Ecclesiastical coup? If the priest hasn't found out yet, there is one party that won the elections and the rest would be usurpation. The interference of the clergy to elect a premier or a cabinet is totally unacceptable.”

Finally, he said that the people will only defend the government if it implements policies in favor of the dispossessed, discriminated against and exploited, on earth and not in heaven. “The Barreto Cabinet would only guarantee the subordinate coexistence of the people with their exploiters, believing it natural and necessary,” he said.

MEETINGS WITH THE CARDINAL

Last Wednesday, Cardinal Pedro Barreto met with President Castillo at the Government Palace and proposed promoting national unity and developing a management that understands all Peruvians and leads to overcoming political confrontations.

“The proposal is a change of course; a course that signifies national unity and that he is the President of all Peruvians,” said the prelate of the Catholic Church in Peru, in statements given to RPP.

Barreto said he had expressed this initiative to the President at the meeting. He indicated that he responded to the invitation that the Head of State himself made to him, through Congressman Guillermo Bermejo, and that he was present in his personal capacity.

The meeting aimed to “make this proposal for a change of course possible from popular unity,” said the representative of the Catholic Church. “I made a proposal that is the feeling of society and the cry of the poorest people who suffer the consequences, not only of the economic problem, but of all this political instability,” he said.

Barreto considered that, given the current situation of political confrontation, “it is not a matter of changing one minister and another, but that the President listens to people of very good will who are interested in transforming the country from a bonfire into a fertile and effective field”.

The next day, on Holy Thursday, a meeting was held between President Castillo, Cardinal Barreto and the Secretary General of the National Accord Forum, Max Hernandez. Upon his arrival at the Government Palace, the cardinal said that the time has come to resurrect a new way of doing politics seeking the common good of all. And he pointed out that it is necessary to seek ways of hope in the midst of the difficulties that the country is experiencing and, above all, to make a transformation of politics and the economy.

“From this complex crisis we are experiencing, we have to look for new ways that include everyone, we are all Peruvians and we must worry about those who are in the countryside, the Amazon, on the periphery of cities,” he told the press together with former Foreign Minister Oscar Maúrtua.

“The time has come to resurrect a new way of doing politics seeking the common good of all,” said the religious.

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