Let's put the question again to Vargas Llosa: how far is Peru going to fuck itself up?
The beginning of the novel 'Conversation in the Cathedral' has been universally recorded as much or almost as Don Quixote. "At what precise moment had Peru fucked itself up?" is already an immortal inquisitorial being paraphrased as applying it to any country or situation of prolonged calamity. The illustrious Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa posted a video on social networks demanding the immediate dismissal of Manuel Merino, the leader of Acción Popular who, as president of the legislative chamber, had co-sponsored the plot against Martín Vizcarra, and who had replaced him as the highest judge of the Peruvian state.
What Merino and the other members of the anti-Vizcarra front probably did not expect was a reaction from the street, particularly from the so-called "bicentennial generation" [of independence from Spain]. As soon as he was sworn in with the presidential sash, Merino launched the riot police with clear slogans of harshly suppressing the protests, with the intention of preventing them from spreading throughout the country. The six days of demonstrations, as many as the duration of the presidency of what Merino called "the Brief", ended with two dead, 105 injured and 41 missing, according to the testimony of ABC correspondent Paola Ugaz.
It was precisely the death of the two young university students Jack Bryan Pintado Sánchez and Jordan Inti Camargo Sotelo that overflowed the patience of a generation that does not see corruption in its political class, but greed and a relentless struggle for its own interests outside those of the people.
The Congress, which is largely made up of deputies under judicial investigation for all kinds of corruption offences, paid heed to Vargas Llosa, dismissed Merino and forced him to resign from his entire government, with the prime minister, Antero Flores Aráoz, at its head. After applying the same potion to the "dictatorzuelo" Merino (this is how the dismissed Vizcarra described him), the president, who only lasted six days, will also have to submit to the scrutiny of the justice system, which, like 67 other deputies, could be prosecuted for bribery and misappropriation, that is, corruption.
In this navel-gazing political class, which seems to live in its own bubble on the fringes of the country, there was once again a division over the possible institutional solution: either to review the conditions of moral incapacitation of the "vacancy motion" and reinstate Martín Vizcarra as head of state, or to find a new name for consensus. This second possibility had a first setback. The Frente Amplio, a left-wing and extreme left-wing party, had proposed Rocío Silva Santisteban, considering the hypothesis that being a woman and a progressive could be a milestone in Peru's history. The proposal was even voted on, but the candidate received only 42 votes to 52. If she had won and been proclaimed Peru's first woman president, the initial and warmest congratulations would surely have come from the second vice-president of the Spanish government, Pablo Iglesias Turrión. Indeed, one of the most emblematic figures of the Frente Amplio, Verónika Mendoza, took part in drawing up and putting into circulation the "Manifesto against extreme right-wing coup d'état" which both the leader of Podemos and the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, had promoted when Luis Arce was sworn in as president of Bolivia.
As is always the case in Latin America, whenever crises raise the political temperature, many wonder what the armed forces will do. It is no longer time for old-fashioned, sad Latin American military coups, but the support or rejection of the uniformed forces for any institutional solution is no less decisive. When the first motion for a vacancy against Vizcarra took place two months ago, Merino himself had secured the support of the military for his accession to power. If he obtained it in the second motion, the fact is that the sabres have been withdrawn less than a week later, probably because it is no longer considered appropriate to suppress protests in the style of Pinochet, but neither is Maduro. Dying in a demonstration is still a sad routine in Venezuela, fortunately not in Peru, however fucked up it may be.
The immediate stage begins with Francisco Sagasti of the centrist Purple Party as the new interim president. His political party, with a majority in capital Lima, was in favour of returning Vizcarra to power. This move was finally rejected by Congress in order to bring about a temporary end to the political war and prevent the Head of State from becoming vacant.