Far-right emerges amid Peru’s tense political climate

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Citizen tension in Peru over the June 6 presidential elections was felt both on social networks and in the streets of Lima, where ultra-conservative groups found a space to express themselves and attract followers.

After Pedro Castillo was declared the election winner, these groups organized rallies in an attempt to annul thousands of votes under the unsubstantiated narrative of “fraud” denounced by former right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori.

Legitimized by opposition parties that share the same narrative, they are now calling for the impeachment of the Marxist Peru Libre president, whom they brand as a “communist” and a “terrorist.”

They do so in legitimate exercise of their right to protest, but also through acts of violence and harassment, including attacks on election officials, journalists and cabinet Ministers.

Although these still small groups are not unprecedented in the country, their actions are something new, contrary to the traditional “anti-movement” trend of the Peruvian right-wing, said sociologist Omar Coronel, a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP).

POLITICAL LINKS

According to Prof. Coronel, these radical movements which declare themselves in favor of the homeland, freedom and family and against “cultural Marxism,” were born between 2017 and 2019, at the height of the ultraconservative group “Con mis hijos no te metas” (Don’t mess with my children), opposed to the implementation of the gender approach in Peruvian public education.

“In this context, in addition to replicating Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump and other regional right-wing politicians’ discourse, this alternative right-wing militancy is becoming seductive, which seeks to be proudly homophobic, racist and xenophobic,” the sociologist said.

In 2018, La Resistencia was born, one of the most visible groups with political ties to Fujimorism and ex-presidential candidate Rafael López Aliaga, promoter of a complex-free and often violent radical discourse against women and the LGTBI+ community.

In 2020, the group marched even during quarantines due to Covid, but its notoriety grew with Fujimori’s defeat.

“WAR OF FEAR”

Two more radical versions split from La Resistencia: Los Insurgentes and Los Combatientes, whose members promote disinformation campaigns and display themselves on social networks with the fascist salute and symbols such as the swastika.

With the triumph of the rural teacher, a “war of fear” has been unleashed within these “fascistoid” groups, whose agenda is focused on preventing the rise of “communists” to power, sociologist Carmen Rosa Balbi summarized.

For them, “Castillo is seen as the reincarnation of Marxism-Leninism-Mariateguism,” added the PUCP professor, who insisted that a racist and classist agenda of “such a radicalized nature” had not been seen in Peru since the 1930s.

The sociologist highlighted the July 14 incident, when hundreds of citizens tried to enter the Government Palace in an action emulating the storming of the U.S. Capitol last January 6 by Trump’s followers.

Balbi added that, after the electoral authorities declared the alleged “fraud” unfounded and rejected all of Fujimori’s legal appeals, the radical discourse worsened with the appointment of Castillo’s cabinet ministers, “who are not up to the task” and most of them are from the Marxist party’s hard wing.

Consequently, Coronel expects these groups “to continue to protest,” although their behavior in the short term will greatly depend on the actions of the current government.

“The more the government moderates, the less likely it will be that these right-wing groups will succeed in organizing themselves and, most of all, in gathering followers,” he said, after underlining that this “radicalism is primarily an invitation to young people.”

ANTI-COMMUNISM AND COLONY

The Sociedad Patriotas del Peru’s members are young but with an eye on the past. Another extremist group that formed in 2018 and marches through the Peruvian capital with flags of the Cross of Burgundy, similar to those of the Spanish Carlist movement.

Co-founder Gustavo Mirano explained that the display of this “Hispanist” symbol is in line with his group’s mission to promote an “integrating vision” of Peruvian history, extolling the vice-regal period as much as the Inca and Republican.

“It is a glorification not only of the [Spanish] Conquest but of all that time in which the universal Hispanic monarchy integrated Peru as a vice-royalty,” Mirano said.

For the ultra-conservative activist, the only point in common between his and other radical groups is the “opposition to the rise of a communist government” that wants to “disfigure the current Constitution from a socialist perspective.”