The former Peruvian president, Pedro Castillo, was left alone on Wednesday in his attempted coup. He did not receive any public support for his decision to dissolve Congress, in a self-coup that tried to emulate that of Alberto Fujimori in 1992. And the Armed Forces and the Police immediately turned against him; so much so that his own bodyguards detained him by order of the police commanders. However, as the investigation progresses, details emerge that Castillo was a little less alone.
The Prosecutor's Office has called the former prime minister, Betssy Chávez, to testify this Friday, because it suspects that she could have acted as an instigator or, at least, a collaborator in the attempt to suspend democracy in Peru. Shortly before the president's speech to the Nation, Chávez sent a message to the government's WhatsApp chat asking the ministers to come "immediately" to the headquarters of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM), located inside the presidential palace, in Lime.
"Gentlemen, ministers, immediately appear at the PCM," wrote the premier, according to leaks from that chat that the Peruvian media published this Friday. At that time, the Minister of Health, Kelly Portalatino, responded in the group that she could not attend because she was on an official visit in Cuzco. And Chávez replied: “Understood, Madam Minister. However, today is a historic day. We need to be cohesive. Unit".
At first, the ministers who assure that they were not aware of Castillo's intentions understood that the "historic day" was a reference to the impeachment that the president had to submit to on Wednesday before Congress, to which he finally decided not to attend, carrying out the self-coup before the certainty that he was going to be dismissed by a qualified majority of deputies.
In addition, Roberto Wong, news director for TV Peru, the public television channel, which broadcast the message live to Castillo's Nation, assures that the president read the speech from Chávez's office and that she was present. A 33-year-old lawyer, Chávez had been appointed prime minister on November 25.
In addition to the premier, the former ministers of Defense, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Justice, Labor and Commerce are also summoned to testify this Friday before the Prosecutor's Office. The former heads of Labor, Economy or Foreign Affairs resigned immediately after Castillo's speech, calling the pronouncement a "coup d'état". The Prosecutor's Office also cited the ex-Commander General of the Army, Walter Córdova, who submitted his resignation a few minutes before Castillo's message.
On the other hand, and to add more grotesque elements to the events of Wednesday, a popular lawyer, Guillermo Olivera, visited Castillo this Friday at the special police compound where he is provisionally imprisoned -along with Fujimori- and assured that the former president he was “sedated” before delivering his speech. “They gave him a drink, supposedly water, and after drinking the water he felt dazed,” said Olivera, who is considering taking charge of the former leftist president's defense. "Everyone has seen that he was reading shaky and I hypothesize that, in addition to trembling, he was a little sedated, he was a little under attack," Olivera said.
At the same time, the new president, Dina Boluarte, left the door open to the possibility of anticipating the elections despite the fact that on Wednesday, after assuming power as vice president after Castillo's dismissal, she assured that she intended to fulfill the rest of the term. , until 2026. “When the position was sworn in two days ago, it was done until 2026; however, if society and if the situation warrants it, we will advance the elections,” said Boluarte.
