00:00We now welcome Armando Mendoza, professor and researcher in public policy from
00:05Peru, who is going to tell us more about the electoral process in the country.
00:08Welcome Armando.
00:11It's nice to be here. So, given the political instability in the past ten
00:18years in Peru, can you tell us more about what the citizens' expectations are for
00:22these elections? Unfortunately, the expectations of the
00:29common citizens are very low, considering that, as you mentioned, the last ten
00:34years, there has been an incredible level of political instability. We are going to
00:41elect what is going to be our 10th president in less than one decade. And that is an
00:48expression of a political system that is already, I'm going to say, in a terminal
00:52phase. It's in a real situation of crisis. And unfortunately, there is not high
00:59expectation that that is going to change in the near future.
01:05Well, in this context, how the record number of candidates has impacted the
01:10border turnout, in your opinion?
01:13This has been one of the biggest problems in the Peru, and that is an expression of how
01:20the political sectors, the political groups, have been absolutely unable to find some
01:26minimum consensus to find some kind of agreement in order to unify forces. In that context, nobody
01:35is expecting to get more than 16 or maybe 20% of the vote. Actually, we have like seven or
01:44eight
01:45candidates that are around six, seven, eight percent of the vote. In other words, the second round is
01:51going to be five. There is going to be a competition by the first and second candidates. And that means
01:59that
01:59you can become president of Peru with maybe having just 10% of the electors voting for you. That means
02:10that we are going to have a very, very weak government with very, very low representativity.
02:18Well, among those candidates, a good number of them are from the right or the extreme right.
02:24Do you think this could mean that deconsolidation of this kind of government for Peru in the coming years?
02:33I don't think that's the question. I don't think so. It's pretty clear that in Peru, as in the rest
02:40of
02:41Latin America, there is an extreme right way. But in Peru, politics, let's going to say, are not so
02:48ideological, are more opportunistic, opportunistic, are more pragmatic. Yes, people speak about the
02:56right, about the extreme right, also the extreme left, but they are essentially labels with not a lot
03:03of content. What there are is positions that are related to extreme position, like in the sense of fight
03:11against corruption or fight against crime. Well, you know, the idea that you need to be tough or
03:17of crime. But when you really analyze what is in terms of political proposal, of government proposal,
03:27actually, they're going to say that to be from the right or from the left is like a confusion. There
03:33are
03:33no specific policies that you can say, yeah, that means effectively a consolidated proposal from the right or
03:42from the left is essentially opportunistic promises made in during the campaign.
03:51Now, another topic also from these elections, this is also a legislative election. So this is going to be the
03:58first time since the 1990s that Peru is going to have a bicameral Congress. Now, what
04:03could this mean for the country's political scenario? Unfortunately, that means that we are
04:09trying to have a very unstable scenario. Peruvian citizens didn't want a bicameral Congress.
04:20In a referendum, some years ago, they rejected 80 percent, 90 percent of the
04:27or the population rejected the idea of having a bicameral Congress with Senadores.
04:34But this, the current government, the current Congress, who has oversized almost absolute political power,
04:43decide unilaterally to impose the Senadores chamber. That means that the next, the next Congress is going to
04:52have huge power, including the power to impeach the president. We are going to have a very, very weak
05:02executive, but we are going to have a very, very strong legislative power where there is a lot of
05:09groups related to mafia, criminal mafia from the illegal mining, from drug traffics and other mafia.
05:18So the environment, the political environment in the next few years for Peru, unfortunately,
05:24is probably going to be very, very unstable and very precarious.
05:33And how do you think this new Senate is going to be conformated when it comes to political powers,
05:39to political parties?
05:43It's pretty clear that the first and the second force in the next Congress are going to be pretty much
05:51the same political groups that are already controlling the Congress. The current Congress
05:57has a level of approbation that is around 2% or 3%. It's that low. It's a Congress that lacks
06:06legitimacy,
06:07that is not respected by the, by the population. But unfortunately, the political system is
06:15will in such a way that those groups are going to have an important representation in the next Congress.
06:22Probably there are going to be a lot of new groups, but the problem in Peru is that
06:27there is no real political affiliation. What that means is that maybe you are elected to the countries
06:34with the party A, and then you go to the party B, and then you move to the party C,
06:40and then you
06:41change, you know, parties easily. There is not any backlash for that. So you have a lot of,
06:47I'm going to say, mercenary politicians that move from one party to another. So the composition of
06:54the Congress probably is going to be very fluid in the next, in the next few years.
07:01Well, thank you so much, Armando, for your input on this topic.
07:05Now, that was Armando Mendoza, professor and researcher of public policy from Peru,
07:15who was helping us understand a little bit more about the elections that are underway right now in
07:20the country.
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