Decoding Peru's Election Chaos and Economic Resilience

In the ever-shifting landscape of Peruvian politics, understanding the roots of current instability is crucial. With a staggering eight presidents since 2018, the question looms: how did we get here? In The LatinNews Podcast this week, we explore the historical context, the key players involved, and the implications for Peru's future.

Join Richard McColl for an in-depth discussion with Dr. Julio Carrión - specialist in Latin American and Comparative Politics and Professor at the University of Delaware -  on the political instability, history, and economic dynamics of Peru, including the legacy of Fujimori, recent elections, and international influences.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Latin News Podcast, a fortnightly deep dive into key developments from across Latin America and the Caribbean. Here's your host from Bogota, Colombia, journalist Richard McCall.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

This is the Latin News Podcast, and I am Richard McCall, your host here in Bogota, Colombia. We're very uh privileged to have Dr. Julio Carrion on the show this week. We're going to be discussing, well, current events in Peru. Dr. Julio Carrion specializes in Latin American and comparative politics at the University of Delaware, and we're speaking with him on the line from New Jersey at the moment. Dr. Julio, welcome on the Latin News Podcast. Good morning, and thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure, although I feel that this might be not only the perfect time for a conversation about Peru, but the most imperfect time because things happen so fast. And we're looking at, again, instability and political uncertainty in Peru, which seems to be the nature of the game. Eight presidents since 2018. We're currently with a kind of, well, I'd say in a holding pattern with the president José Maria Balcazar, with the first round of elections to take place on April the 12th. Perhaps we can start with the very basics. Is how did we get here?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah, how do we get here? Um so I will I will say there are sort of medium-term reasons and short-term reasons, right? So the medium-term reasons, I will start the story in the year 2000, which is the year when Alberto Fujimori uh was removed from office, even though he technically resigned the presidency via fax when he was in Japan. So that's just sort of to set up, you know, a president resigning by facts. Uh and that was the moment when sort of Peru transitioned to electoral democracy. In a context that was quite difficult because of that, 10 years of Fujimori rule have really undermined Peruvian party system. So they were no strong parties at the moment that Peru uh transitioned to democracy. And I think that is a significant reason why we're having what we're having. But the point is that Peru had such an extraordinary economic growth from 2001 up to, let's say, 2013, 2014, that a lot of the institutional failures or more the institutional problems were not quite apparent in that context of such a dramatic growth. But then we reached the elections in 2016, and that's where I will say that's the beginning of the short-term problems, which was an election in which Keiko Fujimori ran for the presidency for the second time. She lost by 45,000 votes in the runoff out of 16 million votes. It was by a whisker. But her party uh gained a significant control of Congress, uh, if I remember, close to 75, 76 out of the 130 uh National Assembly. And she really was hurt by the electoral defeat, and she decided that, as she said publicly, she was going to rule Peru from Congress. And that that's when significant red lines uh were beginning to uh be crossed in Peru. In 2018, uh we have the impeachment of President Pedro Pavlo Kuczynski uh by the flimsiest of the excuses. I mean, there were some uh investigations regarding corruption that could have easily uh been investigated and even sanctioned after he uh finished his term, but since the Fujimoristas and other parties had majority in Congress, they just removed him. And I think that was a significant red line. It was the first sign uh that a president uh had been impeached uh using that uh article in the constitution that says that a president that lacks moral capacity uh can be removed, right? So that was one. Uh then we have a vice president that took over, uh, Martin Bizcarra, who understood that he needed to really campaign against Congress, against the Fujimorista Congress. So Peru entered into a process of political polarization. Martin Bizcarra used his popularity to introduce a number of significant constitutional reforms, including a banning on the re-election of members of Congress, which I think was a major mistake because it reduced the uh time horizon of Congress people. Uh and then, of course, he was also uh he also crossed another red lunch, which was to shut down Congress uh constitutionally, I might say it, but you know, because Congress refused a motion of confidence for the second time, he decided that you know he was going to shut down Congress and call for new congressional elections. So Peru really entered into a situation of power politics, really hard-balled politics. The president dismissing Congress, Congress dismissing the president, and here we are. You know, uh since then we had eight different presidents. Basically, Peru, for peculiar circumstances, had almost turned into a parliamentary regime in which presidents can last for as long as they hold the confidence of Congress. But I think the root of the problem is the lack of programmatic political parties, the fact that most members in Congress have been elected by personalistic uh uh vehicles, uh parties that really respond to private economic interests. Uh some members of Congress uh got financing, illegally financing from informal economies, even uh economies that were borderline criminal. And so it is just a collection of private interests that has turned in the last four or five years uh into a predatory organization. Really, Congress has dismantled uh rule of law in Peru in very dramatic ways. And so here we are, we have no idea what is gonna happen in the right now in the electoral in the first round in April. Will Teiko Fujimori make it to the second round for the fourth time? Who knows? The polls, the most recent polls, are showing a little bit of uh movement there. Uh uh uh Lopez Chow, another university president who wants to become president of the country, uh, is having some kind of momentum. But as I said, you know, 30 days, it's an eternity in Peruvian politics, right? So we won't know. In the last election in 2021, uh uh a poll conducted by the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos showed that almost 40% of people decided their vote on the last week before the election. So, you know, we still have a few weeks to go.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

And and in Peru it's mandatory to vote, isn't it? It's uh everyone goes and dips their finger in the in the in the ink. Right, right. And you have to, if you don't vote, you pay a fine.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah. It's compulsory.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

I mean, that we went all the way back to the year 2000 and looking at Fujimori. It's it's incredible to think you know in 2026 we're still looking back at the the legacy of Alberto Fujimori. And of course, I'm thinking about when you talk about the illicit and or the illegal groups and the private interests, I mean, you can't say Fujimori without mentioning Vladimiro Montesinos, of course, and the videos, and it it seemed to just engender a type of corruption within uh Peruvian politics. And so it to me uh Peruvians are like, yeah, well, we know that they're all awful, we know that they're all out for their own individual gain. So with a name like Fujimori, how do we how do we justify the continual popularity of of Keiko Fujimori?

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Well, declining though, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

I mean, in uh I I hear my memory might fail me, but in the 2016 election, when uh Keiko uh made it to the runoff, I think she had about probably 30% of the vote, if not a little bit more. I'm trying to remember. But in 2021, when she made it to the uh second round, she had about 14-15% of the vote. So there was half of what she got in in and the only reason why she made it to the runoff was because the political fragmentation was such that you know she ended up being second. Uh, Pedro Castillo, who came to who finally won the presidency, he made it to the runoff with 19% of the vote. So, you know, if you count 19 plus plus 14, it's less than 40%, right? So 60% of voters voted for candidates that did not make it to the runoff. And so they were forced to choose between Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori. Keiko uh Fujimori lost again by a whisker, like 41,000, 42,000 votes in a sort of you know, 18 million uh uh votes uh contest. And and I think that she has a core, right? She has a core of supporters uh that is increasingly uh smaller, but is large enough to give her a viable path to make it to the second round, to the runoff, where almost invariably she will lose, right? Because the coalition against her and the Fujimori legacy is still larger in Peru. I have my doubts that she might actually make it to the runoff uh this time, uh, but it's it's too early to tell, right? I I think that uh she might be actually uh overcome by some of those who are now positioned to get closer uh to the uh top positions.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

But as I said, too early to tell, right? It is a bold statement with only 30 days to go in Peru. Right. Let's but let's talk about the candidates. We mentioned Keiko Fujimori, and then we've got Rafael Lopez Aliaga, and we have Alfonso Lopez Chow, who you mentioned, the Aura Nacion, it's the left wing, he's an economist.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Well, it's a it's a I mean, it's a center, it's a center left, more to the center than to the left. But of course, in the Peruvian context, uh they want to make him a candidate of the left. I mean, I I wouldn't describe him as a leftist. Certainly the parties who the left-wing parties in Peru do not recognize him as a as a lefty. I mean, there are two uh openly left-wing parties, uh, one of them a Marxist party who is running, uh, Vladimiro Cerrone. Uh, the current president happened to be a congressman who was elected in the ticket of this Marxist-Leninist party, and now he's the uh president of Peru. I mean, ideology doesn't really matter, you know, and and and Peru Libre, who was the party of Pedro Castillo, really is another one of these collections of private interest, personalistic vehicles rather than ideological ones. But yeah, those are the I will say the three uh main contenders. There is a fourth one who has been rising in the polls, Wolfgang Grosso, uh retired uh major general uh from the Air Force. Uh I think he's attracting a lot of Limeño votes, but he is he is a center right candidate, right? So he is growing uh by gaining votes from Lopez Aliaga and perhaps Keiko Fujimori. And so I I I wouldn't be surprised. We we have to see the new next uh the next round of polls, but uh I will say that either Lopez Chao or Grosso might be one of those two candidates that have a very sudden growth in the last two weeks of the election. Uh and they are so different, right? Lopez Chao was a university president for a number of years. He became uh well known because during the protest against Dina Boluarte, who replaced Pedro Castillo, Lopez Aliaga, who was mayor of Lima at the time, closed the public plaza so protesters that were coming from the provinces could not stay there overnight. Uh, because there were many people moving from coming from the provinces to Lima and they didn't have a place to stay, and they usually stay in plazas like Plaza San Martin, and Lopez Aliaga at the time decided that you know nobody will be allowed to stay there overnight. So Lopez Chow, another Lopez, Lopez Chow, as president of uh the uh University of Engineering, opened the doors to those who were coming from the provinces, and and he gave them uh um, you know, uh housing there. And so I think that cemented his attraction, especially in the Andean and southern parts of Peru. And that is the political capital that he has because he was perceived as somebody who was fighting against this confluence of conservative forces in Congress, and that is his main political capital. He is not one of them, right? When there is a lot of discontent uh against them, those who were in control of Congress. And so, since Lopez Chao is not part of that confluence of interests of that informal alliance, he's perceived as somebody who can represent uh a movement for change. Um, he grew in the polls a little, uh, he seems to be stuck, but again, as the election day approaches, a lot of people who might be sort of looking at other candidates might decide that Lopez Chow is the person to vote for. We we won't know really, right? We won't know until two weeks from now when we have the closest polls to the election day.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah. What seems so interesting to me is that I mean what you talk about about the people the the almost paternalistic figure. Oh, he doesn't represent the the normal political class. What we've had that with uh, you know, we had that with Jose Heri, we've had that with uh Oyanta Ula Umana, we've had that with uh Alejandro Toledo, we had that with um I'm trying to think of Pedro Castillo. That's right. I'm just going through them all in my head. Uh and there's been you know, there's been sort of the sort of bookends of Alan Garcia, who does did represent that and and others. But it just seems very cyclical. And uh that this is like, oh, we'll we'll we'll need to vote someone in who doesn't represent you know the powerful political elites, and yet then they become they become a target straight away once they're in power. When you've got someone like Keiko Fujimori who who controls so much of Congress, then then nothing can get done. I mean, it just seems that we are in the same situation again and again and again.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah. And and and and the sad part of the story is that the person who is elected as representing change, once uh he comes to power, is more of the same, right? Perhaps in a different scale. But the the lesson of Pedro Castillo was really uh depressing because here you have somebody who sort of you know represented this these desires for institutional change and perhaps social inclusion. I mean, he he he he was a well he is a rural, I mean he's now in prison, but he he is a rural teacher and and he was wearing this you know hat who was quite you know uh symbolic. And then he came to the presidency, and then once in the presidency, it just became a mechanism for low-scale corruption. It wasn't even Fujimori-level corruption, right? We're not talking millions of dollars, we're talking thousands of dollars, but corruption nonetheless, right? And and the apportion or the um distribution of uh ministeries, uh, you know, uh, because of political alliances, and each minister became somebody who used his or her position also to you know extract resources for the little parties that were part of the congressional uh representation. And at the end, uh Castillo had a strange coalition of his party, you know, left-wing parties and center parties. Uh and and eventually he decided that he was going to shut down Congress because he thought he was going to be impeached. Uh, and then here we are, right? Uh, because he certainly didn't have the votes nor the support of the armed forces, so it was like he came out of the blue. And it is obvious that there was significant corruption in the Pedro Castillo government. So once again, you have the hopes put into this person, and then once in power, he abandons any efforts to actually govern and engages in this petty uh corruption that was quite corrosive, right? In alliance with some of the parties that ended up actually being part of this uh informal confluence of forces, right? I I don't want to use the term coalition because really it's not even it's not it's not that these parties sort of have decided to sort of you know uh pursue some kind of agenda in Congress. It's just a confluence of different interests. And sometimes when the interests are the same, which is to uh basically, you know, steal blind me from the state, they they come together and they have the votes. Uh the main opposition to Pedro Castillo from the Conservative Party was that he wanted to change Peru's constitution via uh a constituent assembly. But once Castillo was deposed and Dina Waluarte became president, Peru's constitution has been changing almost 40% of it. You know, we we have changed the architecture of the political power. So now we're gonna have a Senate, uh which actually people voted against in a popular uh plebiscite in 2019. So that was discarded by Congress. So Congress has a constitutional uh provision to do that. So many of the things that people say they are not going to do, they ended up doing once they reach power. So that fosters this sense of, you know, skepticism, the anger, and also rejection of the political class. However, somehow, because of the significant political fragmentation, these parties keep being elected, right? There are 35 presidential candidates in this round. And the only reason why we have 35 is because one just died two days ago in an accident. You know, it's a tragic accident, right? But he passed away. Yeah, it was a car accident. It's terrible, right? Uh but it's like how how can people choose between 35 candidates? So, yeah, the best known political symbols or names sort of, you know, are likely to be represented again in Congress. Unless something happens in the next two or three weeks where people decide, okay, I'm fed up, I'm gonna vote for either Lopez Chao or somebody else who has nothing to do with this uh uh set of forces in Congress and give them enough congressional support to prevent any process of impeachment uh in the near future, right? We shall see.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

We we shall see. I mean, because as we said, things move so fast, and we've got President José Maria Balcazar, and I mean we're recording this on the 18th of March, and even in the period when I've been preparing for this, we know that the Prime Minister Denise Mirai has resigned, and that when the Prime Minister resigned, there has to be most of the cabinet resigned, but he's doing a reshuffle. I mean, what does this really what is the point of? All this with just 30 days remaining. It just seems to create more instability.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Oh, yeah. I mean, uh, one of the uh newspapers in Peru today, the cover was, you know, Peru is in ruins or the government is in ruins. And that literally, right, uh, is the case. I mean, Balcazar was elected uh interim president because the majority of Congress thought that he was somebody that they could control. And what is happening since then is that in fact, yeah, he really is, you know, uh a puppet of the forces of Congress, right? Uh, he went for one uh uh prime minister initially, Hernando de Soto, a well-known economist. Somehow that didn't turn out, uh, because uh some parties apparently opposed that. And Hernando de Soto also said, you know, if you want me to be prime minister, then I want to be, you know, the one appointing the ministers, as the constitution says, right? The president appoints the prime minister, then the prime ministers appoints ministers, you know. Uh uh, and of course Balcazar didn't want that, so he disregarded Rernaldo de Soto, and then he went for uh Mirelde Mireis. Uh, and she was supposed to ask for a vote of confidence today. Today, that was the day that you know she was supposed to go to Congress and request that vote of confidence. So she resigned yesterday. There is a new uh Prime Minister, uh uh Luis Arroyo, I believe. And so now he has a 30-day uh uh deadline to go to Congress and request a vote of confidence. Most likely he will go to Congress after the first round of elections. So he he has until April uh 18 to go and request uh a vote of confidence. Most likely he will get it. Uh but it also means that for like what two months more or less, Peru will have a government that has not been sanctioned by Congress, which is really, in the greater scheme of things, not surprising since we considered that it took about two days to Congress to elect a new president to replace Haiti. Peru was literally without a president for 48 hours, or maybe even a little bit more, and life just went uh about like nothing has happened, right? It's really surprising how people feel that their daily lives are so completely detached from political uh processes. And and there is a little conversation among sort of experts and observers of Peruvian politics, like wondering how is it possible that you know the economy seems to be doing all right in the midst of this dramatic political instability? And you know, that's that's a conversation to have. My view is that Peru's economy could have could have uh performed even much better than it's doing now if we have uh political stability. The fact that it's doing as well as it is, it's it's an indication of the solidity of the fundamentals, but also the fact that Peru is mostly an export economy, and you know, demands from the global market uh is strict is still strong enough to fuel that economic growth. But Peru could have done could have done much better if there were political stability and we have a much better Minister of Finance, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:51

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SPEAKER_02 26:08

Yeah, I mean, just I bring that into context. I saw a I saw a figure that the year-on-year growth has been more than three, it's you know, more than 3.5%. I mean, very in a time of of great polarization and uncertainty globally and especially in the global south. Uh, and I'm I'm I'm loath to use the the term of the Peruvian paradox, but if you know where I'm where I'm using we've all used it, but it's like where I'm located in Colombia, if we could have our version of the Peruvian paradox, we'd be very, very happy. But the government sneezes and the US says something, and we are immediately affected, and the economy is affected, but Peru still, you know, with its gold, its copper, uh, and other precious metals, and of course, we have to bring in the relationship with China. We have to bring in these are huge deals. Um, and I would I'd suggest to you, and I'm sure you'll you'll tell me otherwise if if I'm out of place, but you know these the megaport in in uh Chiang Kai and others, and the electric car plant now near to Arequipa. Um these regardless of whoever is in power, all of this is going ahead.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yeah, definitely. And and the role of Chinese interest uh is very important in Peruvian politics. Uh Jose Hey was was seen as a person that was very close to uh a uh Chinese interest in Peru. In fact, uh the beginning of his demise was because he showed up to have a late dinner in a Chinese restaurant uh in Lima. We called him Chifas, you know, a Chinese restaurant, uh, around 11 o'clock at night on December 28th, I remember, uh wearing a hoodie uh covering his face so that he wouldn't be identified. Of course, there were cameras everywhere, so somebody leaked the tape, and they there you have it. Why was he going to a Chinese restaurant uh hiding his face on a late night? And turned out that he was meeting some people, Chinese businessmen and representatives of Chinese interests in Peru, and there were a number of business transactions that have not been quite, you know, explained. But that was the beginning, right? That was the beginning of his demise. He was quite popular for a couple of months. Uh the point is that, you know, China plays a very important role in Peru's economy. Uh, I will say one of the reasons why Peru's economy is doing as well as it is, is because of these economic ties, commercial ties with China. Uh if Peru's economy is not as dependent as, let's say, Colombia's economy on the US market, right? So if if you know uh Trump decides to slap a 50% tariff on Colombian coffee, God forbid, you know, because I drink it, uh that will affect significantly, right? Uh uh Colombia's economy. Uh Peru can probably withstand a significant tariff on some of his agricultural products going to uh United States, but Peru has a lot of business with Europe and China and also minerals, right? Minerals. So it it has it has uh at least in in terms of the exports, uh the mineral exports, a little bit more of uh diversification, copper, right? I mean, we we forget how much the price of copper has increased, and that is a significant uh source of income. And then, of course, illegal mining, gold, right? I mean, Peru has exported, I have no idea, but it's a significant exporter of uh illegal gold. I mean, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, uh, I'm sure Colombia too. This these are the uh the sort of illegal economy that also is fueling some of this growth that sometimes doesn't really appear on the books, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Was it former President Vizcarra who who was uh deposed, well deposed, he was made to resign due to impeached due to due to issues with the mining, with the mining, uh with mining uh corruption in the South?

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Uh no, it was mostly because of some corruption uh that happened while he was governor of one of the departments. Uh it wasn't necessarily mining related, it was more on uh constructions, right? The construction of a hospital and stuff like that. And then and then uh stuff like his role on the uh COVID vaccines, because he was one of those politicians who was first in line to get the vaccine, Chinese vaccine, right? I know. Uh so it came to but but it you know it it wasn't really uh I don't remember any major political figure that has been sanctioned politically because of illegal um activity or relationships with illegal activities in the mining sector, which is a problem because there is a lot, right? There's a lot. Uh one one of the of the problems of the of the ruse political system is that there has been a ban on private financing of campaigns. Uh so the private the financing of campaigns is now public. Of course, you know, if if if you're an illegal uh uh miner or you have illegal interests, what does it matter if you give money to candidates, right? You you're already involved in criminal activities. Giving money to a candidate is not going to, you know, mean significantly larger penalties for you. And if you're running for a candidate and you need money and the other person is not willing to reveal it and you cannot prove it, then why not take that private money that might not be available to others, right? And so the the paradox, talking about the Peruvian paradox, the paradox of uh banning the use of private financing has meant that illegal money now can go into the political campaigns and cannot be registered, cannot be controlled. And and and parties and candidates that want to go by the rules cannot appeal to private uh money because that is now banned. You cannot get money from banks or other companies or private institutions because that is not allowed. So the only money available other than the state money is the one that is illegal. And that sort of fosters, you know, uh a congressional representation whose first duty is to defend those private and illegal activities that brought them to Congress. That's the paradox.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

It it is certainly a paradox that it's top down and bottom up that that seems to affect uh Colombian, uh Colombian Peruvian, sorry, Peruvian politics. I wanted to ask a question, of course. You when when we talk about uh Peru's diversification of its markets and the export economy, the the regular Peruvian is benefiting from from this growth and this boom because I it it's nice to know that Peru has a position from which to negotiate, you know, obviously having so many uh natural um advantages of this level, like as we said, copper and zinc and gold and and beyond. Um but but this money is is yes of any benefit to, let's say, you know, rural communities in Peru.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah. Not really. I mean, that that is another of the problems of uh Peru's politics, right? Uh that it it it's layered uh on a terrain that is highly unequal, right? Where wealth is significantly misdistributed, right? So those who benefit the most are those living in the major cities, Lima, middle class, upper middle class, uh perhaps those who are living in in some of the largest cities in the in the interior, but not the rural areas, right? They they they do not really enjoy. Um the there are parts of the country where the economies are are quite limited, where people go uh uh hungry, where you know there is a significant caloric deficiency uh among children, and that really is a problem that Peru's political system has not been able to address, even in a context of plenty. Yes, poverty today is less than it was 25 years ago. There has been some progress, but it could have been uh reduced much more if we had some programmatic political parties, not necessarily even from the left, you know, even center parties that could have adopted policies of inclusion, social inclusion, income redistribution. The problem is that the economy is so informal. 80% of the labor force is in informal economy. So no contracts, no social security, no uh uh uh taxes, and and and so the state cannot really transfer significant resources to these areas because it's just not there, right? So you have you have a state that is not able to extract even modestly part of that significant wealth to attend the many social and economic needs that are still in the in in the country. And so when uh are those people who are not the recipients of this progress able to say something at the election time, and so they go and they vote for whoever you know might promise a significant change, even to blow up the system. And so there is always this pocket of radical uh parties, even from the left or the right, that sort of foster these sentiments of let's just you know put an end to all of this, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Um I I can see this, I can see this kind of reactionary politics and and voting taking place in private places like sort of Huliaka, yeah around there, or or more internal from Ayacucho, you know, these Andean regions that really have always been overlooked. Yeah, uh and as we as we wind this down, uh Julio, I have to I have to ask as well, is like obviously you're in the United States, we there's a government up there, it's uh it swings its big stick. Um obviously a lot of a lot of the talk always uh you know of US policy is against uh uh the how would you say the international transportation of narcotics, cocaine, Peru being the you know the second largest uh uh grower of coca. Um is there any is there any risk of uh of a Trump government uh trying to enact any sort of uh uh military actions to try and cut that back? Just as you know, recently uh bombing in Ecuador and so on, and of course the boats in the Pacific and in the Caribbean. What would yeah, is there any any worry and concern in Peru?

SPEAKER_01 37:51

What is surprising is how little attention President Trump has given to Peru, right? Uh and and it it is, I mean, Peru's uh drug trafficking is it's in some ways peculiar because despite the fact of being a largest or one of the largest producers of coca, it doesn't really have these cartels that you see in Mexico or that you see in Ecuador. Uh uh, like just like most of Peru's economy, even coca production is highly informal and is not consolidated. I mean, it really is interesting, right? I mean, there are no cartels, or at least they are so so secretive that nobody can really identify. But I think there is a consensus that coca production in Peru is family-oriented, uh, or at least uh groups of families that is highly decentralized, where everybody can really do it. Nobody really controls the transportation of uh coca from Peru to places like Colombia where it's processed. And and and and so it's very difficult to uh focus on a major set of cartels that could be a good candidate for bombing. And in a sense, I I think that that probably goes to Peru's benefit because it's uh it's sort of remove Trump's attention, right? Whereas you can you can talk about, I mean, in Mexico, all the leaders of the mayor cartels are identified. We know who they are, right? In in Ecuador, you also have all these uh mafias. I still don't understand the role of the is it the Albanians? Why the Albanians have so much influence in in, I guess it's related to you know trafficking to Europe. But the point is, like Peru hasn't really uh done that yet, yet at least. And so the China, China has such a significant influence in Peru's economy, and you mentioned you know the the ports of uh Chiang Kai and other uh and the one in Arequipa, and yet the the the Trump administration hasn't really paying much attention to it. And and now that you know Trump is busy elsewhere, you know, I I don't think uh I think Peru has another year or two of uh tranquility, and and by the time Trump is gonna be out of office, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

This this is this is a benefit to Peru to fly below the radar on this and to continue its its growth. It's an incredible when you think of the Chinese investment and of course the desire by the US government to try and impede, and you know, that I guess the the Trump uh extension of a Roosevelt corollary on the Monroe Doctrine, you you would you would expect them to be interfering at some level, and especially with elections, but I guess they look at uh maybe they look at uh Peruvian elections and go, and I'm and this is a complete circle in our conversation, it's like we just don't know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah, yeah. And what is interesting is that another country that is very close uh commercially to China in Latin America is Argentina, but because Miley is you know fan boy number one, yeah, Trump doesn't really care about you know Argentina's dealing with China. And so it it's a it's a beautiful game that Millet is playing. I mean, Millet ran against China, and then of course, once he realized, once he he took office of the economic damage that it could happen if he actually followed some of his uh campaign promises, then he he he had a 180-degree turn, uh uh and then uh a 360-degree turn, and then uh no, 180 because 300 it would be uh uh and now he is like you know Argentina keeps having business with China, but Argentina is having to use the expression that Mening used to have carnal relations with the United States, right? And I mean that was President Mening in the 90s, right? The Argentina had carnal relations with the United States. Uh I I think in the case of Peru, uh it has been such a mess, it has been so unpredictable. Presidents have been so lucky, probably they cannot even remember who's the president of Peru today, right? Because it has changed so much. And so, yeah, that has played to the advantage of the country.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

What a what an incredible situation to say, to take a positive from this. To take a positive from this. Well, thank you so much for your time. It has been a great conversation about uh you know Peru's actual situation and and potential for the future and putting it into context. Obviously, all of you listeners out there, please remember that you can subscribe to the Latin News Podcast wherever you choose, whatever platform, YouTube, and so on. Um, I've been talking to Dr. Julio Carillon, who is a specialist in Latin American and comparative politics originally as well, from Peru. Uh he works at the University of Delaware in the United States. Uh, Dr. Julio, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Richard.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Thank you for the conversation. You know, Latin News is such a major source of you know information for myself too. So I'm happy to have here a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

As well, flattery will get you absolutely everywhere. Thank you again. I've been Richard McCall, your host for Latin News here in Bogota, Colombia. We'll be back in a fortnight talking about more information from the region. So again, please subscribe and thank you, and goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

You've been listening to the Latin News Podcast. For more news and analysis on Latin America and the Caribbean, visit www.latinnews.com.