In Spain, around 270,000 Peruvians are registered. This number has increased considerably in recent years, as the country experiences an ongoing political crisis: five presidents in just four years. The last, Pedro Castillo, still in prison, after trying what its opponents define as a “self-coup” last December.

His predecessor, the centrist Francisco Sagasti (Lima, 1944), who governed the country between 2020 and 2021, works for this newspaper at the headquarters of the Club de Madrid, an organization that brings together more than 100 former heads of state and government. With him we talked about the political situation in the Latin American country.

I see what they say about you looking like Don Quixote is true… Yes, but a practical Don Quixote. I didn’t stay in stories of chivalry. You have to have ideas, imagination and look to the future, but with your feet on the ground. Ensuring that the ideas we have to improve our lives can be put into practice in the short term. The quijotada is not enough.

Is Peru in a period of political destructuring? In general, and not only in Peru, there is a process in which political parties have lost the role of intermediation between citizens and the exercise of power that they traditionally had. We are in a process of political disintermediation and parties in general no longer play the role they had in the past.

Pedro Castillo remains in prison, nine months after his dismissal. How do you assess what happened? [su detención tras disolver el Congreso de Perú y decretar un Gobierno de excepción]?

It is obvious that his exercise of power and political authority was not in accordance with any of the institutional democratic canons or honesty.

Was it a coup d’état, from your point of view?

Certainly.

His replacement, Dina Boluarte, is under investigation by the prosecutor’s office for having repressed the protests of those who supported Castillo…

It’s not just those who support Castillo. These were much broader protests: some referred to the situation of the former president, others expressed their dissatisfaction on several other rather complex issues. And there, we see that there was an excess of repression.

Do you think elections will be called?

I don’t know. This is one of the proposals that I myself formulated more than a year and a half ago. This seems to me to be a solution, although some consider that it would add even more instability. In my opinion, this is not the case. I think we already have a high enough level of stability that a new general election, with a new Congress and a new presidency, is a reasonable solution.

How important is the struggle between the United States and China in what is happening in Peru? For example, China will have the first port in Latin America, Chancay…

I think there’s a lot more noise than there actually is. This is an important factor, but Peru is just one of many countries in the world affected by the economic, political and, to a much lesser extent, military struggle between China and the United States. But I do not see this as a problem for Peru, provided that we have governments that know how to use the position of our country in this new geopolitical scenario. Nothing must be accepted from a power that implies a reduction in the space for national political decisions.

What is Peru’s main problem: poverty, corruption or political instability?

They are interdependent, there is no way to separate them. The issue of poverty cannot be resolved without simultaneously addressing the issue of citizen security or inequality. State revenues in Peru are too low to ensure the minimum provision of social and security services. Currently, insecurity is taking a heavy toll.

Insecurity of citizens…

Last year, 400,000 people left Peru permanently. Who are those who left? Normally, the young people leave, the most capable, the best prepared. This creates a serious problem for both the public sector and the private sector and civil society. We are losing the people who could contribute the most in the future.

Is this exodus maximum?

We haven’t seen anything like this since the second half of the 1980s, during the era of terrorism and hyperinflation. It’s starting to be comparable. I hope it doesn’t continue like this.

In Spain there are just over a quarter of a million registered Peruvians. What hopes would you give them about Peru?

Seeing what Spain is like, I think his return would have a lot to bring to Peru: thanks to his own experience and his work in the country. And I hope they will enter active political life. One of the problems we have is that politics is dominated by unscrupulous people, without interest in the common good, with purely personal interests, even petty in some cases, and who have turned politics gray.

The European Union keeps repeating that Latin America is its priority this time. It is said to be the most “Eurocompatible” region. It is the natural partner of Europe but also of the United States. From a cultural point of view, from a geopolitical point of view, of resources, of compatibility, of culture… In addition, it is the region of the world best endowed with physical resources. I have often said that South America in general and Peru in particular present “a diversity of diversities”. Compare South America with Africa, the Middle East or South Asia. We have biological and ecosystem diversity, energy sources, water sources, soils, minerals, fisheries diversity, cultural diversity…

It seems that the focus at the last EU summit with Latin America was on ensuring the supply of raw materials…

That’s not all. We speak a single language, “portuñol”, from the Río Grande to Patagonia. And we still have 15 or 20 years of “demographic dividend”, during which the working age population will be greater than the dependent population. This is why, at present, it would be strategic to look at Latin America from the perspective of reaching agreements of all kinds: cultural, scientific, investment, commercial, social. This is a golden opportunity for Europe. Scientific and technological cooperation programs should be created between Europe and South America, as well as between the United States, Canada and South America. China will not do this.