Peru elections: Castillo appoints former legislators and technical professionals to transition team

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Peruvian presidential candidate Pedro Castillo presented this Tuesday, May 18, the technical team that will advise him in his government plan, including former legislators Juan Pari and Hernando Zevallos, former prosecutor Avelino Guillen and nuclear physicist Modesto Montoya, among others.

In a public act held in a crowded stadium in the district of Puente Piedra, the far-left candidate asked not to start “judging what we do not know” because he considered that “certain obstacles will appear in this unequal fight.”

Castillo will face right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori in the second round on June 6, but on Sunday, May 23, the technical teams of both candidates will debate.

“They said (about him) that he has no plan, no team, that he is improvised, that he is terruco (terrorist), he is communist, (but) terrorism is hunger, is misery”, said Castillo before introducing his collaborators.

The candidate of Perú Libre explained that the professionals presented are coordinators of the teams he will have in all sectors, but that this does not mean that they are already “appointing ministers” for each of the portfolios.

COORDINATING TECHNICAL TEAM

Thus, he confirmed in his technical team the former congressman and former president of the investigation commission of the Lava Jato case, Juan Pari, and the former legislator of the Frente Amplio movement, Hernando Zevallos, as coordinator in the area of health.

Likewise, the economist and expert in social policies Celeste Rosas and another economist from the Ucayali region, Roberto Vela.

Other collaborators are the aeronautics expert Julián Palacín, the physicist Rolando Paucar, the lawyer Ricardo López, the sociologist Anahí Durán, the award-winning teacher Juan Cadillo and the poet Andrés Alencastre.

Although they were not present at the event, Castillo presented the nuclear physicist Modesto Montoya and the lawyer Avelino Guillén, the prosecutor who asked for 25 years in prison to which former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was sentenced for crimes against humanity.

Together with the technical team members, the 37 elected congressmen of Peru Libre were present, to whom the candidate said that “they will have to work and think for the people”. He promised his followers that “here you will have a bench that will not get down on its knees to corruption.”

OPPOSING EXTREMES

Castillo acknowledged that his country is currently living “a reality of extremes and extremists”, where “there are right-wing groups, without thinking of the people, we see that they have united for their interests, for their causes, thinking of their own pockets, with their backs to the people.”

In this sense, he criticized those who have wished him dead and that the matter is not talked about, in allusion to the words of the former candidate Rafael López Aliaga, but mentioned that he plans to stay beyond an eventual mandate, as one of his elected congressmen said, even though he signed a commitment of honor that he will hand over power in 2026.

Likewise, he showed a jersey of the national soccer team. He affirmed that “the red and white is not stained”, in rejection of the support that some selected players have shown for Fujimori’s candidacy, who had adopted that garment in her campaign with a view to the second round.

Castillo reiterated that one of his priorities would be to call for a Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution and recover the population’s health, reactivate the economy by supporting micro-enterprises and “recover Camisea’s gas”, in reference to a privatized gas production field in Peru’s Amazon region.