Socialists Cheer as Marxists Seize Control of Another South American Country
A candidate dubbed “the most radical leftist candidate to win a Latin American election in recent years,” will be taking power in Peru, according to the results of the country’s June 6 election.
Socialist Party candidate Pedro Castillo appears to have won, although conservative Keiko Fujimori has alleged that the election was tainted by fraud and vowed to keep battling, according to Reuters.
Castillo has 50.14 percent of the vote with 99.935 percent of ballots tallied.
Pedro Castillo’s victory, assuming it is confirmed, poses big risks. The most likely is of a weak, incompetent government https://t.co/HSsVGv2VRE
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 11, 2021
“The people have already chosen their path,” Castillo said Saturday as socialists cheered their apparent victory.
“No more polarization in the country. Let us leave it to the authorities so that once and for all these things are no longer prolonged and so the popular will is respected.”
In an Op-Ed in the Miami Herald, Andres Oppenheimer, who said he had read Castillo’s Spanish-language election platform, wrote that it “looks like it was lifted from the Russian Revolution in 1917.”
The document said that Castillo’s party is “a leftist socialist organization,” adding that “to be leftist, one has to embrace the Marxist theory.”
The platform said Peru will not be “subjugated” to “the government of the United States” and international banks.
In outlining its economic goals, the platform said multinational companies could face nationalization if they do not willingly pay 80 percent of their profits to the government.
And as for private ownership of the media, this “must not only be fought against, but prohibited,” the document said, according to Oppenheimer.
#PedroCastillo‘s #Peru election win dealt the ruling class a huge blow. The masses supported a militant trade unionist of #PeruLibre, which calls itself #Marxist, #Leninist, and Mariateguist (after Mariatátegui, founder of the Peruvian #socialist movement)https://t.co/dosXHQ6FjR
— Socialist Revolution (@usimt) June 10, 2021
“Castillo’s plan is a copy-and-paste version of the Chavista manual, which has been used in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador: You win elections, use your political honeymoon to replace the constitution, then enact a new one that allows you to stay in power indefinitely,” he wrote, referring to the ideology first promulgated by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
“It sounds crazy that Peru, which has been pretty successful in reducing poverty during the past two decades, would choose to go that route. But it’s part of the political aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has ruined the economy. There are record levels of unemployment, which are driving many Peruvians to seek radical — or, rather, magical — solutions,” he wrote.
Max Aguilar, 63, said he supports Castillo because Peru needs a change, according to The New York Times.
“We believe that the far right has already had enough time to show us that things can be better — and they haven’t done it,” he said.
“So we, the people, are saying no, that is enough. And we are betting on a change. We have a lot of confidence in Professor Castillo,” he said.
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