Peru General Discussion: Dr. Rock, la Señora K y los verdecitos

[Sir John Johns]

I already created a thread about Ecuador general discussion, so why not one about its southern neighbor? Especially because there are interesting things ongoing.

The country is currently hit by a massive ever-growing scandal of corruption and favor-buying in the Peruvian judicial system. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, the justice minister, six out of seven members of the National Council of Magistrates (CNM) – an independent institution in charge of appointing judges, justice officials and members of the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) – have been either suspended either forced to resign as the consequence of the revelations made since two weeks by various Peruvian media outlets (in particular the IDL Reporteros investigation website which had previously revealed the connection of numerous Peruvian politicians with the Odebrecht company) over malpractices within the Peruvian courts.

Over twenty audio recordings, provided to the medias by an unknown person, have been unveiled since July 7. Made at the request of the Organized Crime Prosecutor in Callao, the secret recordings of telephone conversations were firstly decided as part as an investigation of the lawyers of a gang drug but are now additionally concerning corruption and influence peddling cases involving members of the Callao Supreme Court, the CNM and the Peru’s Supreme Court. I hope what following is clear as I had myself hard time to understand several things and there are quite a high number of protagonists (in bold the most important ones).

The first audio recordings were made public on July 7 and revealed that, back in February, Walter Ríos, the chief justice of the Callao Supreme Court, had seek the help of controversial lawyer José Luis Cavassa in order to ‘build bridges’ with two members of the CNM, Julio Gutiérrez Pebe and Guido Aguila, so they could help him to influence the selection process of the new president of the CNM in favor of Ríos’s preferred candidate, Orlando Velásquez. A former member of the ONPE, Cavassa had been previously involved in a large-scale signatures forgery that had enabled Alberto Fujimori’s Peru 2000 party to get registered. Also accused of having acted as an intermediary between the Odebrecht company and the former governor of Áncash Region César Álvarez Aguilar (currently in jail for corruption and murder) and of having signed bogus contracts with the Brazilian company on behalf of the Áncash regional government, Cavassi is currently employed by the Telesup distance learning university, which is owned by corrupt businessman and former congressman José Luna Gálvez (himself accused of having made pressures on the ONPE to get his new party registered). In any case, Velásquez was elected the new president of the CNM.

Also recorded was a conversation between Ríos and Gutiérrez Pebe in which the latter confirmed he had appointed a person recommended by Ríos to a post of assistant prosecutor and asked in return Ríos to intercede in favor of the port company of Callao, in which Gutiérrez Pebe’s wife had apparently interests, in the judicial process that opposed the company to laid off workers. Additional audio records included a conversation between Ríos and an official of the Callao Supreme Court in which Ríos pushed for the advancement of an employee who was recommended by Aguila.

In another recording, released that same day, Ríos was asked by Iván Noguera, another member of the CNM (who, because it’s Latin America, also tried last year to launch his singing career as ‘Dr. Rock’), to sign an internship agreement between the Callao Supreme Court and the aforementioned Telesup University, which also employed Noguera’s wife. In the recording, Noguera specifies that it’s not very important if the work expected from the Telesup interns isn’t actually done.

The following day, new audio recordings were unveiled by IDL Reporteros involving this time Supreme Court Judge César Hinostroza. In a first recording, Hinostroza is heard discussing with an unidentified man the case of the rape of a 10-year old girl, asking his interlocutor if he wants him to reduce the sentence of the rapist or declare him innocent. In another recording, former judge Aurelio Quispe is requesting Hinostroza a meeting to talk with him about a ‘personal matter’. Quispe adds he has a contact with someone who knows President Vizcarra and mentions an ‘affair’ that could interested Hinostroza or his son.

On July 10, the Panorama investigative TV-program broadcast additional audio recordings, including one in which Walter Ríos is calling a court assessor to plan a meeting with a third person and talk about the delivery of ‘ten greenbacks as a guarantee’. In another recording, César Hinostroza is heard discussing with an unknown person the organization of a meeting with ‘Mrs. K’ of ‘the No1. Force’ whom the medias widely assume to be Keiko Fujimori, the leader of the largest party in Congress (whose logo is a letter 'K'). Keiko Fujimori like Hinostroza have denied the holding of such a meeting while Fujimoristas congressmen had made desesperate attempts to prove that 'Mrs. K' isn't Keiko Fujimori, suggesting notably 'she' could be former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.




Peruvian Internauts have made memes mocking the Fujimoristas' denial of the obvious fact that Mrs. K is indeed Keiko Fujimori

The following day, a new audio recording was released in which Hinostroza is apparently negotiating FIFA World Cup tickets for him and his wife with his ‘friend and brother’ Antonio Camayo. The owner of the IZA Motors company, Camayo is a close associate of Fujimorista congressman Miguel Torres. It’s a small world because Camayo also happened to have organized the party celebrating the election of Orlando Velásquez, the candidate backed by Walter Ríos, at the head of the CNM. In the phone conversation, Camayo indicates he was just leaving the government palace to which Hinostroza jokingly (?) responded that now he’s is in the higher reaches he should not forget ‘his friend César Hinostroza’. It was later confirmed that Hinostroza attended soccer matches in Russia during the FIFA World Cup.

Revelations continued as, on July 13, Panorama broadcast another audio record. In this one, Justice Minister Salvador Heresi, by then a congressman and the secretary general of the ruling Peruvians for Change party, is requesting legal ‘advice’ from Hinostroza about the then-ongoing impeachment process of president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. In the record, Hinostroza refers to himself as a ‘modest friend’ of Heresi. While Heresi doesn’t seem to have made something illegal, he was nonetheless forced to resign.

Later was made public a recorded conversation between Walter Ríos and Luis Alberto Díaz, the communication adviser of Duberlí Rodríguez, himself the chief justice of the Peru’s Supreme Court. In the audio record, Díaz invites Ríos to a lunch to celebrate the birthday of former soccer player Héctor Chumpitaz (suspected of having received money from Vladimiro Montesinos during the Fujimori presidency). Ríos responded he can’t attend the lunch as he has a planned meeting with the secretary general of the justice ministry to talk about the advancement of Ríos’ wife, who was employed by the ministry. Then, Díaz tells Ríos that Justice Minister Heresi will be present at the lunch as Duberlí Rodríguez, Justice Ángel Romero Díaz and … Antonio Camayo. It was confirmed that Ángel Romero Díaz, Ríos, Duberlí Rodríguez and Camayo were all present at Chumpitaz’s birthday lunch but not Heresi.

Today, Duberlí Rodríguez has announced his ‘irrevocable’ resignation as his position had became untenable. Also resigning today was Orlando Velásquez who was forced out of the head of the CNM by President Vizcarra. In a press conference, Velásquez called Vizcarra a ‘radical’ and hinted that the president of Peru is probably himself also incriminated by the audio recordings.

One of the last decisions taken by Velásquez before his resignation has been the dismissal of the head of the ONPE, due to strong suspicions he had illegally favored the registration of the party of José Luna Gálvez.

Two other members of the CNM (not involved in the ongoing scandal) resigned at the same time than Velásquez leaving Baltasar Morales as the only remaining member of the CNM out of seven to not having been forced to resign or having been suspended. This is however probably only a matter of time before Morales being forced to resign as he has been, in his turn, incriminated in an influence peddling case by audio recordings released over recent days. The recordings confirmed what had been revealed in last December by the IDL Reporteros investigative website: a meeting was held in February 2017 in the house of Guido Aguila with Morales and Héctor Becerril (an influential Fujimorista congressman and self-proclaimed champion of the fight against corruption) in order to arrange the election of Julio Gutiérrez Pebe, a Fujimorista ally, as the new president of the CNM. Ultimately, it was Aguila himself who was elected at the head of the CNM with Gutiérrez Pebe being elected vice president. Incidentally, Becerril’s wife was hired as an attorney by the CNM in September 2017 while Aguila’s brother was himself hired by a Fujimorista congressman.

So, a chief justice, basically the whole bench of the CNM, several high ranking magistrates and the head of the electoral office have all being forced to resign in less than two weeks. And this is possibly only the beginning as additional audio recordings are expected to be released in the next days.

This is happening less than six months after the resignation of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, involved in the Odebrecht corruption case and in a scandal of vote-buying to prevent his impeachment. His successor Martín Vizcarra has seen his approvals quickly collapsing from 57% at the time of his inauguration to only 29% in the most recent polls, conducted before the first audio recordings had been released.

Heresi’s resignation from the ministry of justice is the third resignation of a minister in less than four months. Minister of production Daniel Córdoba Cayo resigned in last April after having been secretly caught on video negotiating with fishermen unions the suspension of their strike in return for the firing of Córdoba Cayo’s own vice minister. Finance Minister David Tuesta (the fourth person to hold the finance portfolio since 2016) resigned for his part in last May over disagreement with Vizcarra concerning the economic policy.

Vizcarra has promised to push a comprehensive reform of the Peruvian judicial system which could be put to referendum if the Fujimorista-controled Congress refuses to vote for.

[Sir John Johns]

Latest Ipsos poll published by El Comercio five days ago and showing how unpopular are Peruvian politicians and institutions.



Approvals of President Martín Vizcarra: 35%/48%
Do you think Vizcarra will complete his term in 2021? Yes 55% No 34%
Do you think Vizcarra and the Congress [in which Keiko Fujimori’s FP holds an absolute majority] will maintain good relations or will they clash? Good relations 21% Clash 66%
Do you think Vizcarra will manage to implement important reforms for the country in the next years? Yes 41% No 49%



Approvals of Prime Minister César Villanueva (19%) and the cabinet (25%).



Approvals of the Congress (15%) and its speaker Luis Galarreta (12%) and of various government ministers.



Approvals of the Judicial Power (12%/80%)



Approvals of the main political leaders/political proximity with various politicians.

[Velasco]

The approval rates of Peruvian politicians are amazing 😮

I used to like Veronika Mendoza. She's now leading Movimiento Nuevo Peru, a split of the left-wing Frente Amplio. I know about nothing of this "New Peru". Is it a party or a personal vehicle for Veronika? Her approval rate is as terrible as Keiko's. Is she a rival for Mrs K? How is she perfoming in the polls for president? Also, is the second spelling error in "Qeiko Presidete" intentional?

"Los Verdecitos" would be a great nickname for the PVEM troupe in México, btw

"

[Sir John Johns]

The approval rates of Peruvian politicians are amazing 😮

Not really surprising as every single Peruvian politician seems to be involved in the sole Odebrecht corruption case. Seriously, four former presidents have been arrested/are investigated in the case – Alejandro Toledo (on the run), Alan García (investigated), Ollanta Humala (in jail), PPK (investigated) – as Keiko Fujimori (investigated), former first lady Nadine Heredia (in jail), and numerous local officials including former mayor of Lima Susana Villarán (investigated), current mayor of Lima Luis Castañeda Lossio (investigated), former governor of Áncash César Álvarez (in jail), former Cusco governor Jorge Acurio (in jail), current governor of Callao Félix Moreno (investigated) and so on.

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I’m truly into Peruvian politics since only few weeks so I don’t have yet had the time to fully understand the divisions inside the Peruvian left. From what I know, the split in Frente Amplio and the establishment of Nuevo Perú can be explained by several factors:
- personal rivalry between Verónika Mendoza and Marco Arana, the founder and leader of Frente Amplio; Arana was opposed to Mendoza in the presidential primaries of the party in 2015 and seems to have never accept his defeat
- apparent divergences over the opportunity of turning the Frente Amplio into a mass party. Arana, probably fearing that new members, attracted to the party by the presidential candidacy of Mendoza, would vote to topple him in a potential leadership contest, unilaterally blocked any new memberships, thus angering Mendoza and her followers
- more generally, ideological differences between Arana and Mendoza. The former incarnates the ‘old’ left with its revolutionary and anti-imperialist rhetoric and wants to put emphasis on social fights (notably against extractive activities). Meanwhile, Mendoza wanted to transform Frente Amplio into a government party, which can seriously be considered as a strong contender for the 2021 general elections and not as a perennial opposition movement. In that way, Mendoza is trying to attract urban and middle-class voters and is apparently putting an emphasis on ‘New Left’ themes like gender equality
- possibly a generation gap between the deputies supporting Arana and those supporting Mendoza as the supporters of the latter appear to be younger and more feminized (notably the three prominent pro-Mendoza deputies, Marisa Glave, 37; Tania Pariona, 34; and Indira Wilca, 29).
- a regional divide: Mendoza’s former party is stronger in the Cusco region while Arana’s Tierra y Libertad party was founded in the northern region of Cajamarca. Tellingly, the three Frente Amplio congressmen from Lima all joined Nuevo Perú.
- divergence over the attitude to display toward ‘traditional parties’. Mendoza criticized Arana for allegedly trying to make a deal with Keiko Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular over the share of parliamentary commissions chairmanships. She also refused to meet with PPK (unlike Arana) when the latter launched a national dialogue. Finally, Frente Amplio voted in favor of PPK’s impeachment in December 2017 (like Fuerza Popular) while Nuevo Perú decided to abstain.

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I guess this can be explained by Mendoza’s association with the party of Ollanta Humala (of which she used to be a member) and also by the association of left-wing parties by some Peruvian voters with bloody far-left guerrillas (like the infamous Shining Path). In that regard,  Fuerza Popular is clearly playing this card, trying to portray Frente Amplio and Nuevo Perú as terrorist enablers if not as the political wing of the Shining Path.

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Clearly, Mendoza wants to make the runoff in the 2021 presidential election and, so, presents herself as an alternative to Keiko Fujimori. Polls indicate she would place either third either fourth behind Keiko, Julio Guzmán and (possibly) Alfredo Barnechea. However, the polls are all over the place (the only things they agree on is 1/Keiko is ahead of other candidates 2/Guzmán is her strongest challenger 3/Alan García is the most unpopular candidate (lol). There is a long way until the next election and a lot of voters are still undecided so it will be a bit premature to make predictions about who will become Peru’s next president. Several candidates (Keiko?) could still be hit by scandals and it’s uncertain if some of them (notably Kenji Fujimori who is involved in a vote-buying scandal) could run.

There will be local elections in next October I intend to cover, however this poll will not be very indicative of the strength of the national parties as: 1/local political landscape is dominated by local interest regional or municipal parties 2/ several new parties, like Nuevo Perú or Kenji’s Cambio 2021 aren’t yet registered and so are unable to run.

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I doubt so, but I’m not the author of the picture so who knows?

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[Sir John Johns]

During his Independence Day speech before Congress (his first one), Peru President Martín Vizcarra announced yesterday his intention to call a nationwide referendum over the following issues:
- a reform of the National Council of the Magistracy (CNM) whose members would be no longer elected by their peers but selected through public merit competitions
- a ban on reelection for congressmen (as it is already the case for mayors, regional governors and presidents)
- a reform of the private financing of political parties
- the restoration of an upper house (abolished in 1993) with no increase in the number of parliamentarians

However to call a referendum, Vizcarra will need either the approval of the Congress (controlled by Keiko Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular) either gather a number of signature equivalent to 10% of the total Peruvian registered voters (i.e. 2.3 million of signatures).

Reactions to the announcement have been mixed. While Verónika Mendoza and Julio Guzmán seem to be supportive of the referendum, the proposal of banning reelection for congressmen have been, predictably, not well received by many parliamentarians. Notably, Martha Chávez, a former Fujimorista congresswoman and a bigwig of Fuerza Popular, has denounced the proposal as ‘cheap populism’. Still, Keiko Fujimori hasn’t yet announced how his party will approve or not the holding of a referendum.

Also, several Fujimorista politicians have already called for the inclusion of additional proposals to be put to referendum, notably legalization of same-sex marriage, death penalty for child rapists and withdrawal of Peru from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, the name of former president Alberto Fujimori has appeared in a recently released audio recording: during a conversation between César Hinostroza and an unknown person, the former said ‘Fujimori is looking for us, dude. What does he want? A lunch meeting, I don’t know’. The discussion took place only two days after the pardon of the former president by Pedro Pablo Kunczynski.

[Hash]

legalization of same-sex marriage, [...] and withdrawal of Peru from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

How do those two things go together? I guess the assumption is that the former would be rejected, while if the latter passes then Peru could avoid having to eventually legalize same-sex marriage via court order? Or did the IAHR Court have something to say about daddy Fujimori's pardon?

It's also amusing that angry homophobic Latin American right-wingers, like we saw in Costa Rica, know absolutely nothing about the Inter-American System and all seem to assume that 'withdrawing' from the system would automatically absolve them from having to apply its rulings. Even if that's not the case. The other amusing part is that these angry homophobic Latin American right-wingers also want to join a list of countries which includes Venezuela (and Trinidad and Tobago).

[Sir John Johns]

The referendum on same-sex marriage has been suggested by Cecilia Chacón, a Fuerza Popular congresswoman, because, according to her, there is 'too much polarization' on the issue and 'only minority voices are heard and not the voice of the majority'. So yes, she hopes that same-sex marriage would be rejected by Peruvian voters. A paragon of morality, Chacón had been previously sentenced to a suspended jail sentence for embezzlement.

The withdrawal of the IAHR Court is motivated by a combination of factors. Firstly, the Pact of San José would apparently forbid the restoration of death penalty for ordinary crimes (abolished in Peru in 1979) and thus prevent the introduction of death sentence for child rapists, a measure strongly pushed by Fujimoristas. Secondly, the Court isn't very happy with Fujimori's pardon as it is opposed the amnesty of human rights offenders. Consequently, it recently, has called Peruvian justice to review Fujimori's pardon. Finally, Fujimoristas disagree with the Court's decision over same-sex marriage.

Back in 2007, there was already an uproar from Fujimoristas in 2007 after the IAHR Court ruled that the Peruvian state should paid reparations to the families of 41 prisoners executed in 1992 for terrorism under Fujimori regime. The supporters of Fujimori then already called from the withdrawal of Peru from the IAHR court, accusing it of encouraging terrorism and complaining about the fact that such a poor country like Peru was forced by mean foreign judges to pay ‘overpriced reparations’ to terrorists’ families.

[Lord Halifax]

It's also amusing that angry homophobic Latin American right-wingers, like we saw in Costa Rica, know absolutely nothing about the Inter-American System and all seem to assume that 'withdrawing' from the system would automatically absolve them from having to apply its rulings. Even if that's not the case.

Why not? It's a sovereign country so it's weird if a withdrawal from the system isn't enough.

[Silent Hunter]

I didn't know there were c.100,000 Japanese Peruvians. You learn something new every day.

[Hash]

It's also amusing that angry homophobic Latin American right-wingers, like we saw in Costa Rica, know absolutely nothing about the Inter-American System and all seem to assume that 'withdrawing' from the system would automatically absolve them from having to apply its rulings. Even if that's not the case.

Why not? It's a sovereign country so it's weird if a withdrawal from the system isn't enough.

I may have been unclear in my post: withdrawal from the System would obviously absolve them from any future obligations or rulings, but withdrawal isn't retroactive on past jurisprudence.

During the Costa Rican election campaign, when Fabricio A. was proposing to withdraw Costa Rica from the IAHR Court, Semanario Universidad asked legal experts how viable his proposal actually was.

Given that the thing most angry homophobic Latin American right-wingers object to is the IAHR Court, they propose to "withdraw from the Court", but this is impossible: you cannot pick and choose what parts of the System you like or dislike, so if a country is to withdraw, they need to denounce the American Convention on Human Rights -- which only two countries (Trinidad and Tobago in 1998 and Venezuela in 2012) have done. Article 78 of the Convention is the relevant part here:

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source

The conclusions drawn here are that (a) denunciations become effective one year after having been declared and (b) they do not release a party from its obligations resulting from jurisprudence and its effects which have occurred prior to the effective date of denunciation.