PERU - Reaction confesses its electoral failure

Here we want to publish an article from the Website "Communist International" on the elections in Peru.

Proletarians of all countries unite!

REACTION CONFESSES ITS ELECTORAL FAILURE

As we published on May 28, 2021, in our note „FAILURE OF THE REACTIONARY ELECTIONS, THE ROLE OF THE LOD (MOVADEF) AND THE ACTIONS OF THE “FEUDAL WARLORDS” OF VRAEM“: “Both candidates, Castillo and Fujimori, are the product of the reactionary failure of the first round of the reactionary elections of 2021, which confirmed what reaction feared so much and with it the failure to “legitimise” the new reactionary authorities, that is, “ultimately” with “a disdain of the citizenry” for the political class of the country. That is to say, an absolute absence of hope in what the leaders of the parties that harbour them can offer Peruvians in these elections, regardless of their ideological background or the convictions they claim to embody. A spontaneous rejection of the old State, its parties, personalities, institutions, etc., was thus expressed. Nearly 42% of the electorate either did not vote or voted white or null, and the rest who voted for a “party” or candidate did so mostly against the two candidates who have gone to the second round in order to “twist the electorate’s hand” (in the words of a reactionary political commentator).” The reaction itself, through the mouth of one of its most conspicuous representatives in electoral matters, Tuesta Soldevilla, has thus recognised its electoral failure: “What needs to be changed: When a party wins, creditors come forward to be repaid, because in politics there is no philanthropy. Our country has elected its national authorities, but next year it will have to be completed with the regional governments and municipalities, where the parties we see today in the executive and parliament are under-represented. A long and hard campaign as we have never seen before. A kind of civil war of the vote. The fierce political division expresses, no doubt, the social division that exists. Winning either way has led to a lot being lost, creating more mistrust than has already been accumulated. We are a disbelieving country, even though photos of an intense campaign might show enthusiasm. The government that is being inherited is a country torn apart by the pandemic and by its politicians. If one does not know how to read the results with serenity, one will have seen a mirage that is always deceptive. The two thirds of the country that did not vote for either of the two candidates in the first round not only exist, but their demands, fears and frustrations are intact, because winning in the second round is thanks to the necessary artifice of the electoral system, so that someone manages to achieve the presidency. Our country has elected its national authorities, but next year it will have to be completed with the regional governments and municipalities, where the parties we see today in the executive and parliament are under-represented, where the multiple regional movements monopolise the majority. A country cannot achieve its goals without a minimal realignment of state powers and those at national and sub-national levels. It is therefore up to the politicians to carry out agreements in a divided country.” Then Tuesta Soldevilla insists on marking the failure of whoever is appointed president by this electoral fraud: “When a party wins – which is now in the minority…” (Fernando Tuesta Soldevilla, Professor at the Catholic University, Lima 7 June 2021, dierio el Comercio). Moreover, in its editorial today, the same reactionary newspaper writes about the problem of “legitimisation”, thus: “Editorial: The insinuations of a narrow victory Whoever wins the presidential election will begin his government with half the country against him. Editorial Lima, 8 June 2021 With less than four per cent of the votes still to be counted, the vote of Peruvians here and abroad continues to be almost perfectly divided in two. One of the candidates in this second round will win, but it is clear that his or her victory will not be by even one percentage point. It will not be the first time this has happened (the distance between Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Keiko Fujimori in the second round in 2016 was 0.24%), but this time the marked contrast between the political sign of one competitor and the other speaks of two vast contingents of citizens with very different ideas about what would need to be done in the country after 28 July. The so-called honeymoon that newly elected leaders usually enjoy – that is, the period of grace that the population grants to any new head of state to try to implement his or her initiatives – will consequently be very short or non-existent. Instead of enjoying the sweet taste of triumph, then, the winner will soon experience the pains of having achieved his goal in a particularly narrow manner. If his victory is not to be pyrrhic, he will then have to seek legitimacy as soon as possible with the half of the country that did not vote for him and that will be breathing down his neck from day one, ready not to forgive him even the slightest misstep. The question, of course, is how the new president can achieve such legitimisation.” That is why we reaffirm everything published in our campaign of the boycott against the general elections 2021 for the replacement of reactionary authorities of the old bureaucratic landlord state in the service of imperialism, mainly yabqui, and we reproduce the two final paragraphs of our note of 28 May 2021 published for ic-ci: “These elections show the further collapse of the old state and the old society, which is more and more ripe to be swept away by the people’s war. Their bureaucratic path is developing in the midst of more reactionary struggle, which, as it had to be, has the participation of opportunism and revisionism. That is why we say, this reactionary general election of 2021, as it had to be, has been presented and developed as a defence of the outdated existing order and evolution of Peruvian society; and they express a greater collusion and reactionary struggle between the two factions of the big bourgeoisie and between the groups that make up each of them. These sharp contradictions must also be framed within the reactionary plan of the “Bicentenary” and the continuation of the application of the three counter-revolutionary tasks which they need to develop and which in essence have not changed (to boost bureaucratic capitalism, to restructure the old state and to seek to annihilate the people’s war), specifically seeking to conjure up the successful culmination of the general reorganisation of the Communist Party of Peru (RGP), in and for the people’s war in the struggle to the death against the revisionist and capitulationist rats of the so-called “letters of peace” (i.e. Modavef) or the one headed by the traitor, renegade and mercenary “José” of VRAEM) once again we say; keep dreaming, because its realisation is a historical and political impossibility. Mainly Yankee imperialism is aiming for a new plan (2021 – 2036) through a new “elected” reactionary government, if not, it will be because of the coup d’état that is always around, but whoever heads the new reactionary government, this new government will be more starving, more genocidal and more pro-Yankee than all the previous ones, it will use the “bicentenary” by moving patriotism, “national reconciliation”, “all bloods” and even “new constitution”, bearing in mind that for this old and rotten bureaucratic landlord state, it is very important to give legitimacy to the regime and “legitimacy” is an essential component of its counter-subversive strategy of low intensity warfare (GBI; guerra de baja intensidad) and that is the failure they have reaped. “Legitimacy” of the new government for its low intensity warfare by applying more and more repression of the just and growing popular protest.” And, in the present note, we add: Both contenders in the second round, regardless of their origin or class background, are class political expressions of the big bourgeoisie. Keiko Fujimori, as representative of the comprador faction, focuses on the interests of this faction, but tries to present herself as the defender of the interests of the entire big bourgeoisie, that is also of the bureaucratic faction and, even more obviously, demagogically, pretends to defend the interests of the middle bourgeoisie and even those of all the people. The “rondero” Castillo, regardless of his class background or origin, represents the interests of the bureaucratic faction of the big bourgeoisie by the programme that he carries, although he promises to respect the interests of the other faction and demagogically claims to represent the peasants by trying to play on his family background and in a word he presents himself as the representative of the people in the reactionary elections. That is the class character of the positions of the two candidates who, personally and caudillosquely, although they say otherwise, head Fuerza Popular and Peru Libre; both invoke the people and promote a series of measures and “social aid programme”, Fujimori and more Castillo with his “new constitution”, with organic or corporate representation, who has said that “the state must control the companies and the citizens”. Both have improvised their plan for the second round and the team for Castillo’s possible government is borrowed from different sides and will be supported in case he is appointed by the high state bureaucracy and the advice of imperialist NGOs. The elections are a means of domination of the landowners and big bourgeoisie; they are neither an instrument of transformation for the people nor a means to overthrow the power of the rulers. Thus, within this function of the elections in Peru, similar to those in other countries, and within their condition of being crucial for reaction, the general elections of 2021, as they should be, have been presented and developed as a defence of the existing outdated order and evolution of Peruvian society; and in this framework the parties, such as the 18 that participated in the first round and the two that have remained for the second round, maintain and defend the same fundamental objectives and goals and only have differences in form and means and how to use them. PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT PERU 8 June 2021