00:00We now welcome Dr. Yvonne Tellez, international law expert from Quito, Ecuador,
00:05who will give us her input on the Peruvian general elections.
00:08Welcome, Dr. Yvonne.
00:10Good morning. Thank you for the invitation.
00:14So, Doctor, do you think this election could finally put an end to ten years of political instability in Peru?
00:21Well, actually, no.
00:23I think that, as we were seeing before, the high number of competing candidates guaranteed not only a runoff in
00:35June,
00:35but I think that if we frame this moment, those parliamentary and presidential elections are not just taking place in
00:47a context of political instability.
00:50They are unfolding within a system where instability has become normalized and structurally embedded.
00:58Over the past decade, Peru has experienced multiple presidential removal and resignations,
01:06imprisonment of former presidents, persistent conflict between the executive and the Congress, deep defragmentation of the party system as well.
01:21So I think that what today's election confirms this trajectory that is more than 30 people or candidates competing,
01:34no candidate surpassing the 50% of the voter support.
01:39And I think this is just not the fragmentation, but this is a hyper fragmentation of the political representation.
01:48So I don't think that Peru is facing a temporary crisis or we can frame this crisis within only this
01:56past 10 years.
01:58I think Peru is operating under a model where instability itself has become a governing logic.
02:05And this with the erosion of presidentialism in practice, I think even though Peru remains a presidential system and it
02:20has a fixed separation of powers,
02:22I mean constitutionally thinking the state, I mean constitutionally thinking the state, in practice the presidency itself has become the
02:30most fragile institution.
02:32We have weak electoral mandates due to this fragmented voting, this absence of party coalitions or stable party coalitions,
02:43this expansive, this expansive, expansive congressional powers such as this moral incapacity vacancy clause that they have.
02:53So I think that this whole situation, this whole structure is driving Peru into like a de facto parliamentary system,
03:06this dynamic without the stabilizing mechanism of the parliamentary systems.
03:12So I think this this is a whole structure that has not been working as expected.
03:19And I don't think that this is a situation that can be surpassed just with one electoral process.
03:29So do you think in this context that citizens distrust towards the political system is playing a key role in
03:36the elections?
03:38Yeah, I think so, because the today's dynamics and seeing what Peruvians are thinking or saying regarding these elections,
03:50I think that this reinforces these structural problems that we're talking about.
03:56I'm talking about the hyper fragmentation, because this reflects this this collapse of the party system, clear absence of a
04:06leadership, because there's no candidate that is capable of building a broad legitimacy.
04:12We're also seeing no structural proposals, just security centered discourses.
04:21So institutional reforms are absent in the in the political debate, of course, weak political capacity.
04:31For example, problems such as illegal mining are not being tackled with serious proposals.
04:41And well, of course, the expanding legislative legislative legislative role regarding Congress and Senate.
04:51So I think that this dynamics are we're seeing those through the the the behavior of the electorate.
05:04So going back again to the to the first argument, I don't think it's a situation that can be surpassed
05:13by this the election of one candidate.
05:16And because also, as we were saying before, since no one surpasses at least the 15 percent of the of
05:27the support of the electorate support runoff is almost guaranteed.
05:33So I think this this drives us into the same atmosphere, into the same mood of some kind of political
05:45uncertainty.
05:49Now, from this record number of 35 candidates, a good number of them are either right wing or extreme right
05:56wing.
05:56Now, the rise of the right in Peru, what would it mean for the Latin American region, in your opinion?
06:04I think that's something that we have to look into and do not take this or not give it not
06:15not provided the serious implication that it has for the region.
06:20As you were saying before, most of them are situated in the right or in the far right.
06:25So I think this reflects broader regional trends, but in a in a more extreme form, because, for example, we're
06:36seeing that there is a strong rely on the on the security and securization discourse.
06:47That is no serious proposals, but just security issues behind the narratives of the candidates without a deep and profound
06:59knowledge of the country and of the real state and the real problems and needs of the country.
07:06So I think that this is a very strong issue.
07:10The other one, we know that Peru is in a way divided between Lima, its capital and the rest of
07:19the country.
07:20And as we've seen before in past elections, we've seen that the southern Peru has a different political trend and
07:32completely different from the center.
07:34And I'm talking about Lima, the capital.
07:37So, for example, Lima tends to go more into right wing proposals because the elites and the center of power
07:46is concentrated in this in this territory and the rest of the country that faces strong structural problems, strong social
07:55problems such as poverty, such as the absence, for example, of water, sanity and all of this other big, big
08:03necessities.
08:05Tend to vote more far from electing candidates that are situated on the right.
08:14However, however, I think that this this trend regarding Peru shows this regional trend that tends to favor securization narratives.
08:32Not strong and serious proposals and also something something very, very important that I want to highlight, and it's like
08:41the improvisation of politics and kind of a real politic where we're seeing that electorate, the electorate tries to favor
08:50and tends to favor the most sympathetic candidate without actually asking for the candidate.
08:59I want to highlight a deeper knowledge of the country or something more serious regarding what the plan of state
09:07and the plan of government that the candidate has.
09:10So I think this this reveals this this this regional trend.
09:14I'm talking about Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and now, for example, what's happening in Colombia regarding those electoral trends that tend
09:23to favor the right with just regarding security issues and nothing else.
09:29Well, thank you, Dr. Tejas, that was very helpful input.
09:34Thank you. Thank you again for having me.
09:36.
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