After a very tight June 6 presidential election and weeks of vote-counting (and backroom wheeling and dealing), Pedro Castillo was sworn in on July 28 as President of Peru. He is a teacher and leader of the SUTEP teachers union, whose radical wing has well-documented links to the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) narco-terrorists. Castillo named as his Prime Minister Guido Bellido, who is under investigation by the Peruvian justice system for allegedly defending Shining Path; long-time leftist sociologist and former guerrilla Hector Bejar was appointed Foreign Minister; and, much to the satisfaction of Wall Street and the City of London, Castillo named World Bank economist Pedro Francke as his finance minister.
This, British daily Guardian reported, was key to “calming jittery investors and anxious Peruvians alike.” The Guardian recounted that Francke had promised them in June: “Private companies will continue to be private companies. Our economy will be market-oriented but with pro-poor policies.” The Guardian further wrote that “He ruled out nationalizations but said multinational mining companies would have to leave more money behind in the country.”
