Mr Castillo is leading by example, announcing that he will forgo the presidential salary and continue to draw a teacher’s wage.. He has been a teacher for a long time and during the intensive campaign for presidency, he always harped on his humble background as against his elitist contenders. Castillo promised to build a corruption-free Peru which witnessed how the ruling elite including the elected presidents accumulated huge wealth by making use of their respective offices.

A number of presidents and world leaders attended the inauguration, including Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez, who stressed a desire to work with Mr Castillo for a united Latin America. Former Bolovian president Evo Morales called for collaboration among the left wing nations in Latin America..Morales specifically mentioned of the need for cooperation between Peru, Argentina and Bolivia in the production and use of lithium.

Castillo, a 51-year-old former rural schoolteacher, becomes Peru’s first president in decades with no ties to the country’s political or economic elite and he has promised, among other things, to ensure there are “no more poor people in a rich country”. He is not taking salary and also not staying in the presidential palace. He has promised to convert the palace into a museum.

“I swear by God, by my family, by the peasants, by the Indigenous peoples, by the ronderos (peasant patrols), fishers, professionals, children, adolescents, that I will exercise the office of President of the Republic,” Castillo said during the ceremony. The new president said ‘ I swear by the people of Peru for a country without corruption and for a new constitution’

Reports say that many Peruvians have high hopes that Castillo will be able to deliver jobs and healthcare, and continue the country’s coronavirus vaccine roll-out. But he will have a tough task as the opposition party is strong and he will be facing big constraints in implementing his programmes if those turn out to be too radical. Right now, the poverty level is quite high and in the last two years, thousands of people have lost jobs leading to the lowering of incomes. These people are having high expectations and Castillo have the task to fulfil that.

Peru has been hard-hit by the pandemic, recording the highest COVID-19 death toll per capita in the world. More than 195,000 people have died due to the virus in the South American nation to date, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Castillo has to focus on speedy vaccination programme, especially among the poor and take immediate steps to improve health care.

Castillo’s Free Peru party does not enjoy a majority in a fragmented Congress, holding 37 of the 130 seats, compared to 24 seats for Fujimori’s Popular Force party. An opposition-led alliance also won a vote on Monday to lead the Congress in what was viewed as a setback for Castillo. The defeated presidential candidate of the right Keiko Fujimori is sure to oppose the pro- people measures of his programme.

As his chief economic adviser, Castillo has appointed World Bank economist Pedro Francke, seen as a moderating influence on his boss, who had initially said Peru’s mining and hydrocarbon riches – a mainstay of the economy – “must be nationalised”.

In an interview with a news agency, Francke said that “we will not expropriate, we will not nationalise, we will not impose generalised price controls, we will not make any exchange control that prevents you from buying and selling dollars or taking dollars out of the country”.

Castillo is leading Peru in a crucial period of Latin American polity. Chile is going for presidential elections in October this year and this will be followed by presidential elections in Nicaragua in November. The performance of Castillo in Peru will have an impact on the political mood in the other two nations. The Left is in a resurgent mood in Latin America again.Castillo’s good performance will only give a boost to that. (IPA Service)