Leftist Latin American leaders endorsed a coup in Peru. Shame on them! | Opinion

The political hypocrisy of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and a few other leftist-ruled countries in Latin America is mind-boggling: Many of them angrily denounce right wing coups, but happily tolerate leftist coups.

That’s exactly what happened — once again — last week, when these four countries issued a joint statement on Dec. 12 in support of Peru’s ousted leftist President Pedro Castillo.

The former president was ousted Dec. 7 after he announced on national television that he was dissolving the opposition-majority Congress, and that he would rule by decree. Hours later, the Congress ordered dismissal by an overwhelming majority of votes, and replaced him with his former vice president, Dina Boluarte.

Castillo’s coup attempt was a clear violation of Peru’s Constitution. It was a self-coup to grab absolute powers, exactly like the one carried out by former right-wing Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in 1992. Fujimori was rightfully removed from office and sent to jail.

But while Latin America’s authoritarian left supported Fujimori’s ouster at the time, invoking democratic principles, it is now criticizing Castillo’s removal from office.

The joint statement by Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia expressed “alarm” over Castillo’s ouster and referred to him as “President of the Republic of Peru.”

The statement also called on Peru to “prioritize the citizens’ will as expressed in the ballot boxes,” suggesting that Castillo should be reinstated in power.

Instead of denouncing all coup attempts, the leaders of these governments seem to be saying that leftists coups are OK, while rightist coups aren’t. Several of them took a similarly anti-democratic stand when they defended former Bolivian President Evo Morales after he had remained in power long beyond his constitutional term, and had blatantly rigged Bolivia’s 2019 elections.

Predictably, the dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela also came to Castillo’s defense. In a tweet that sounds laughable coming from a regime that has not allowed a free election in almost 63 years, Cuban dictator Miguel Diaz Canel complained that Peru’s oligarchy had “subverted the will of the people.”

Cynthia McClintock, an expert on Peru who teaches at George Washington University, told me that there is no question that Castillo violated the Constitution. Castillo announced the dissolution of Congress in an address on national television.

“It was a classic self-coup, like Fujimori’s self-coup,” McClintock told me. “There’s a feeling that Congress was out to get Castillo from the start, but none of that obscures the fact that Castillo staged a coup.”

Samuel Abad, a professor of constitutional law at Peru’s Pontifical Catholic University and the University of the Pacific, told me that the joint statement by Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Bolivia is “absurd.”

“It’s a clearly political statement that has no legal basis,” Abad told me. “What Castillo did by ordering the dissolution of Congress and the reorganization of the judiciary is the most serious crime that a president can commit. There’s no worse break of constitutional order than that.”

As I’m writing these lines, pro-Castillo demonstrations by radical leftist groups have already claimed seven deaths. Boluarte, who was elected as Castillo’s running mate on his same Marxist party platform, has vowed to hold early elections in late 2023 or early 2024 in an effort to restore calm.

Peru obviously needs to fine-tune its election system to allow for presidents to be elected with greater popular support. Peru’s elections feature too many candidates, who are elected by a small minority of voters, which makes it difficult for the winners to form government coalitions. Castillo had won the first round elections with only 19% of the vote.

Perhaps it’s time for Peru to change its election laws to allow three rounds of voting if no candidate reaches 30% of the vote in the first round, as George Washington University’s McClintock has proposed.

But there’s no doubt that Peru’s Congress did the right thing in upholding democratic institutions and ousting Castillo.

Latin America should have zero tolerance for coups, regardless of whether they come from the right or from the left. The leaders of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia have not only failed to defend democratic principles but are also shooting themselves in the foot by legitimizing coup attempts. They should be named and shamed for it.

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