Peru elections: Pedro Castillo, the conservative rural teacher calling for radical change
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Pedro Castillo is a religious and conservative rural teacher from outside traditional Peruvian politics, who is running for the presidency of Peru with radical proposals -perhaps dangerous or inapplicable- that highlight the contradictions of a broken country divided between the haves and have-nots.
Nobody expected that this 51-year-old man of humble peasant descent could be one step away from winning the presidency of the country wearing his peculiar “chotano” hat, a pencil, and a discourse that clashes head-on with the political “status quo” and the dogmas of the free market that have ruled Peru firmly for the last 30 years.
According to Peruvian media and analysts, the teacher came “out of nowhere” in the first round to fight for the presidency.
It would be more correct to say that Castillo emerged from a place where no one was looking: the millions of rural dwellers, isolated from the traditional centers of power and far from Lima, the big city that many mistakenly assume is an example of Peru’s reality.
OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM
Castillo is a leader of the teachers’ union; his first major contact with Peruvian politics was as the manager of a general strike that in 2017 put the government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynsky in check.
It has been the networks of rural teachers and professors, a humble collective that exerts great influence in the communities it serves, which promoted with word of mouth his candidacy.
The ‘rondas campesinas’, the rural militia that keeps watch where the State does not reach and of which he was a member in his youth, have been another of his supporters.
Clearly, Castillo earned his ticket to the ballot by playing outside the schemes of Peruvian mass politics.
CONSTITUTION AND CHANGES
In the second round, already forced to expose himself to critical media, analysts, and demanding citizens, Castillo evidences his hostility towards some of the fundamentals of liberal democracies.
In spite of promising in writing that he will not violate any constitutional precept, for many Peruvians doubts persist about the criticisms he has made of institutions such as the Constitutional Tribunal, the Ombudsman’s Office, or the separation of powers itself.
What Castillo really promotes, under the slogan “no more poor people in a rich country”, is the repeal of the Constitution in force since 1993, created by Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and openly neoliberal, and the creation of another Magna Carta where the State has a greater place as a service provider and promoter of the economy.
Constitutional change would be legally possible, but extraordinarily complicated to achieve, and Castillo has not yet clarified how he plans to achieve it, except by indicating that it will be “the people” who will do it.
FREE PERU LIBRE?
Part of the radical discourse of the master, such as the “nationalization” of the mining and energy sector, or the “limitation of imports” comes from the ideology of the Peru Libre party for which he is running for the presidency.
This party is led by the “Marxist-Leninist” doctor Vladimir Cerrón, former governor of the Junín region and convicted of corruption, a crime that prevented him from running for the presidency.
Almost all of Castillo’s campaign has been focused on detaching himself from this figure and trying to approach the center with much more measured proposals and a technical team outside Peru Libre.
Clearly, actively and passively, Castillo affirms that the government will be his and his alone, without Cerron’s interference, but this is a process that has gone in fits and starts, with conflicting messages and various degrees of clumsiness.
However, there is no doubt about his conservative social stance: he is against education with a gender focus, abortion, and expansion of the rights of the LGTBI community.
HERMETICISM AND HOSTILITY
Castillo is also hermetically closed, when not openly hostile to the press. During his first campaign, Castillo did not cease to point out that the Peruvian media act against him with biased, exaggerated, or manipulated information.
During the campaign, several of his supporters assaulted journalists in the exercise of their work, which triggered many alarms.
This does not hide the fact, as polls indicate, that media coverage in Peru is indeed unequal and clearly favorable to his opponent Keiko Fujimori.
Castillo is married to a school teacher, also very religious, and is the father of three children, but nothing else is known about this possible presidential family.
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