Peru experienced a new hectic day in its national politics this Wednesday, with the coup d’état of Pedro Castillo, the dissolution of Congress and the subsequent dismissal of the country’s president until this Wednesday. The newspaper El Comercio, half a centenary of that country, dedicated a harsh editorial to the leftist leader, now detained. He called him a “dictator,” spoke of “infamy” and compared him to “ruffians” of the past.

“Golpe” is the concise -but forceful- title of the editorial that the newspaper published on its website in the early hours of the afternoon. It was more poignant on the way down: “Cornered by the signs of corruption and faced with the possibility of being vacated, Pedro Castillo has decided to finish his turn into dictator”.

The newspaper, the oldest in the country, reviews the last hours of Peruvian politics and deepens his criticism of Castillo,who went from denying the possibility of dissolving Parliament a week ago to the self-coup attempt this Wednesday, when the opposition gathered votes in Congress to dismiss him.

Finally, after the self-coup, Parliament voted for him to leave power. Following the constitutional line, he was replaced by his vice president, Dina Boluarte.

“Pedro Castillo decided to give a Coup. No more no less. Consequently, he has become a dictator and thus he must go down in history, in whose pages of infamy today shares site with all the ruffians that in the past tried to subvert the constitutional order in our country”, summarized El Comercio in the first paragraph of its editorial.

In addition, he alluded to the investigations for corruption of the Public Ministry and defined Castillo as “leader of a criminal organization”.

“History will take care of judge the tyrant“He added in another of the strong lines that he dedicated to the now former president.

He also assured that there were “signs” of the maneuver that Castillo forced this Wednesday and that the coup “was not built overnight.”

He urged “Congress, the citizenry, the Armed Forces and the institutions” to be “on the side of the law.” Otherwise, continues El Comercio, they will become “accomplices of the indignities. And that’s a place you don’t come back from.”

Already in his last sentences, he referred to the “fluctuating and often unfortunate” Peru’s relationship with democracy. “There has been no shortage of puppets that have tried to subdue the institutions and laws,” said the newspaper that Juan Aurelio Arévalo Miró Quesada has directed since 2020.

He concludes with another call: the immediate future of Pedro Castillo “must be ruled by the same laws that today, with total self-confidence, he has trampled“.

Pedro Castillo, arrested after the self-coup in Peru

The leftist leader had reached the Presidency after winning the second round of the 2021 elections against Keiko Fujimori. However, the initial political difficulties were added in recent months by investigations that could marginalize him from Government House.

In February 2022, he appointed his fourth government in six months. In August, he was the subject of a total of six investigations for corruption and influence peddling, an unprecedented situation in Peru. And on October 11, the Justice filed an appeal for unconstitutionality accusing him of the crime of criminal organization of corruption.

The opposition in Congress was pushing a motion to remove him from office. In the last few hours, he seemed to have gathered the necessary votes for the proposal to be successful.

Cornered, Castillo rehearsed a self-coup on Wednesday, which earned him criticism even from his vice president. He dissolved Congress and announced an emergency government.

In the early afternoon, however, Parliament itself dismissed him. And then Dina Boluarte was sworn in as the new president of Peru, the first woman to hold that position in the country’s history.