MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru's ruling party diverts from proposed cabinet

Castillo supports the “caviar” cabinet his party opposes

The leader of Peru's ruling party Peru Libre, Vladimir Cerrón, Friday said he believed the proposed cabinet had changed course from the movement's original guidelines in an “undeniable political turn towards the centre-right, where the 'caviar' representatives increased.”

The Marxist political grouping which took Pedro Castillo Terrones to Peru's Presidency thus announced it would not endorse his new cabinet, which it regards as a turn to the “right-wing centre,” in a clear departure from the party's ideals which might lead to political fracture.

Perú Libre also said in a statement that “this composition is made up of parties without registration, supported by North American NGOs, who have co-governed with the last four governments and now with the current one.”

The party's Extraordinary National Assembly also pointed out the appointment of the Ministers of Labor, Betsy Chávez, and of Vice President Dina Boluarte at the helm of Development and Social Inclusion, responded to “individualistic” acts and did not represent the political formation despite both Chávez and Boluarte being members of Perú Libre.

Cerrón also called PL lawmakers to reassess their allegiances because Parliamentarians from the National Federation of Education Workers of Peru (Finite Peru) to which Castillo belongs, “have a project of a party of their own.”

The grouping founded by Castillo received its official registration with the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion a few days after the President's inauguration, which is the first step towards its evolvement into a political movement.

PL's 37 current lawmakers include some teachers closer to Castillo than to Cerrón. For weeks it has been rumoured they would form an independent parliamentary group. Perú Libre has thus called on its members of Congress not to give the vote of confidence to the «caviar» cabinet chaired by lawyer Mirtha Vásquez because “not doing so would imply a principled incoherence.”

With the latest cabinet changes, Castillo has kept away Cerrón's closest allies such as former Prime Minister Guido Bellido, who is under-investigated for the alleged apology of terrorism. “Here the people rule and the money has to be invested for them,” Castillo stressed.

“Today even with a tweet it is thought that the country is changed, and that is not the case, the country is changed by working,” the President went on.

Health Minister Hernando Cevallos insisted “there is a distance between having a difference and going frankly to the opposition of a government which continues to raise the flags it proposed in the campaign.” He added Vásquez's was “more open to dialogue,” which he thinks is good. “There is a greater degree of tolerance, in the need to seek consensus,” he added.

“We have a cabinet that is raising an intense debate on things to reach serious conclusions. That is the profile Mirtha Vásquez has,” said Cevallos, who kept his post after Bellido's removal.