The Polisario curse

Thriller literature is full of curses from beyond the grave as a common thread in all mysterious tales. And the short story of the apprentice dictator, Pedro Castillo, tastes like a Polisario curse.

The Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, on Wednesday congratulated Dina Boluarte as the new president of Peru, replacing Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office by the country's Congress.

The former Peruvian president, Pedro Castillo, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, democratically emerged from the ballot box to attempt a self-coup d'état on Wednesday by closing the Congress of Deputies against constitutional precepts.

In fact, while the third motion of censure was being prepared, Castillo rushed to make a speech beforehand, confessing his mistakes and citing his inexperience in office. At the same time, he staged his coup d'état, announcing to the nation that he would temporarily dissolve the Congress of the Republic and set up an exceptional emergency government to draw up a new constitution. 

He also ordered a nationwide curfew from Wednesday night, as well as announcing a reorganisation of the judicial system, the judiciary, the Public Prosecutor's Office, the National Justice Board (JNJ) and the Constitutional Court (TC).

With this self-coup d'état, Pedro Castillo officially proclaimed himself absolute dictator of Peru with the intention of creating a constitution to suit himself. In this way, he attempted to comply strictly with the typical Venezuelan, Nicaraguan or Algerian totalitarian manual, as well as that of the Algerian military junta and, most recently, the coup president Kais Saied of Tunisia. 

The fact is that Peru was ungovernable with this populist. Three motions of censure and eight government crises in one year. The latest was that of Foreign Minister Rodríguez Mackay, who resigned when Castillo announced on his Twitter account, with the flippancy of a novice, the re-establishment of relations with the pro-Iranian terrorist group Polisario.

The populists use democracy as a means of gaining power, dismantling everything in order to perpetuate themselves Cuban-style, and sowing conspiracies here and there like octopus ink to divert the attention of the international community. The ideological positions of these totalitarians, in addition to having little effect, only reinforce the Moroccanness of Western Sahara.

We had already warned of this coup when we said at the time (in the opinion article Pedro Castillo, Palabra de maestro) that these populists cling to power like limpets and that at the end of their mandates, they will try to stage a coup. And so it happened.

Fortunately, this time Pedro Castillo failed in his self-coup. He was imminently dismissed by Parliament and detained in the police station of the seventh region of Lima. The Congress of the Republic thus re-established constitutional order, swearing in Vice-President Dina Boluarte, in the presence of the legislators and representatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Armed Forces and the National Police.

Pedro Castillo, who was formally accused last October by the Public Prosecutor's Office of leading a criminal organisation within his government, has just been denounced by the Attorney General's Office for allegedly committing the crimes of sedition, abuse of authority and serious disturbance of public order.

The Peruvian case is a clear warning to Latin American populists who are trying to break democratic coexistence and break international relations for an ideology that is clearly contrary to international law.

The new president, the ultra-leftist Dina Boluarte, must put the country back on the democratic path, away from populism, and regain the confidence of the international community and the markets.

Howard Carter and his entourage desecrated Tutankhamun's tomb and the curse fell upon them, one by one, relentlessly, according to legend.

Pedro Castillo tried to resurrect the Polisario mummy and ended up in a dungeon for rebellion. The Polisario Front has always been a jinx. There is the example of Algeria, which has been unable to get its head above water for 47 years despite its highly prized gas.