Mario Vargas Llosa on Pedro Castillo: “He tried to destroy democracy from power”

Mario Vargas Llosa referred to the Peruvian and Latin American political situation.

The Nobel Prize for Literature Mario Vargas Llosa referred to the coup attempt that Pedro Castillo carried out on December 12, 2022. At the V Bienal de Guadalajara, which has been taking place in Mexico, the writer pointed out that the former president tried to destroy democracy from power.

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During the inauguration of the event, he criticized the fact that the majority of Peruvians, especially from the most impoverished regions of Peru, have given their vote to Pedro Castillo in the 2022 General Elections.

Let us remember that Pedro Castillo was in power for only one year and five months, as he tried to carry out a coup by announcing in a message to the nation that he would close Congress because he was not allowed to work since he came to the Executive Branch. Since then, he has remained behind bars while the Prosecutor’s Office investigates him for alleged rebellion.

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Along these lines, Mario Vargas Llosa commented that Peru “fortunately” got rid of the “dictatorial blow” that the former candidate of Peru Libre tried to impose.

“He tried to destroy democracy from power,” said the writer.

Mario Vargas Llosa questions former president Pedro Castillo in his most recent column.

Earlier, in his opinion column in the newspaper El País, the writer referred to Pedro Castillo, after the Prosecutor’s Office began the investigation against him for the alleged commission of rebellion.

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“Since his election, the blunders of this character who was ignorant of the most basic things in Peru had provoked the indignation and anger of different sectors (…) His unpopularity had reached 70% or so of the Peruvian population, and those horrifying figures were yet to increase, ”he published.

At the biennial, which bears his name, the writer also referred to the political situation in Latin America. He warned of the presence of various authoritarian governments, which have been “causing a lot of damage” because they allow “populism, demagogy, statism, intolerance and ideological extremism.”

“Other countries like Ecuador try to prevent the retrograde and obscurantist forces of the past, incarnated by the fugitive Rafael Correa and others, from taking over the State again, but there are many (countries) that are already in the hands of authoritarian leaders who will have a hard time time and effort to break free,” he added.

Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (i), Nobel Prize winner in Literature 2010, speaks today during the opening of the V Biennial bearing his name, in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco (Mexico). EFE/Francis Guasco

He blamed the population for the election of left-wing presidents by stating that they have not known how to calculate the effects of their decision.

“(…) and in others due to acts of force or circumstances that distorted the popular will,” he added.

Likewise, at the academic level, he pointed out the presence of a “culture of cancellation” or “dictatorship of thought”, through which the free exchange of ideas is prevented in universities, the media and social networks. He assured that due to political correctness and identity fanaticism, freedom of opinion is prevented.

“A dictatorship that not only exercises censorship against contemporary thought and culture, but also seeks to abolish the past, altering or prohibiting books, paintings and other cultural expressions that have been part of the legacy of our civilization for centuries; Faced with all this, we reveal ourselves, ”he specified.

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