Wednesday, December 7 has been a wild day in Lima, Peru, after controversial Marxist President Pedro Castillo attempted a “self-coup” by dissolving Congress and instituting rule by decree — only to have Congress turn the tables, impeaching him on the spot and ordering his arrest. By three o’clock in the afternoon, Castillo was in custody after attempting to flee to the Mexican Embassy for asylum, and a new president, former Vice President Dina Boluarte, sworn into office.
Castillo’s problems finally came to a head after many months of political chaos. Elected as a Marxist with an Everyman, rags-to-riches image, Castillo has already escaped two attempts to impeach and remove him from office. This time, the numbers were not in his favor as Peru’s Congress was preparing a third impeachment vote this morning. In a last-minute desperation move, Castillo proclaimed the dissolution of Congress and his intention to write a new Constitution. At the same time, Castillo promised to respect property and other rights — even as he announced a strict curfew and his plan to rule by decree.
Peru’s 130-person Congress wasn’t having any of it, though. Refusing to recognize the dissolution order, 101 of them voted for impeachment. Fortunately, Peru’s military leaders and vice president also came out against the attempted coup, sealing Castillo’s fate.
While his successor Boluarte is also a leftist, she posted a courageous tweet supporting the current Constitution and the rule of law while the crisis was still unfolding and the outcome was very much up in the air. We hope she will be chastened by the swift and decisive political demise of her former ally and running mate.
The failure of a leftist coup in Peru may betoken further sea changes in Latin America, many of whose citizens, from Mexico to Argentina, are weary of decades of oppression and economic stagnation at the hands of the international leftist elite who have called the shots (often literally) for several generations. Peru’s political upheaval may not betoken so much a complete repudiation of Marxism as a fear of ending up like Venezuela — whose dictatorship started with the usurpations of a popularly-elected Marxist, Hugo Chávez.
From the electric presidential candidacy in Argentina of wildly-popular Austrian economist Javier Milei to the recent rock concert-like vibes at Mexico’s first ever CPAC gathering, something seems to be stirring across Latin America. We hope to one day see freedom ring from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego. Perhaps today’s wild goings-on in Peru, along with the conviction of Marxist kleptocrat Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina yesterday, will one day be regarded as the first metaphorical salvos in the battle to restore Latin American liberty.
