By Andres Oppenheimer
Mexico’s populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is setting a new record for double standards: He is relentlessly questioning the president of Peru’s democratic credentials — after giving a red-carpet welcome and awarding Mexico’s highest medal to the dictator of Cuba.
It sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. Lopez Obrador has repeatedly — and falsely — called Peruvian President Dina Boluarte a “usurper” of power. He has also cited her alleged lack of democratic legitimacy to justify Mexico’s refusal to hand over the rotating presidency of the Pacific Alliance trade bloc to Peru.
Reacting to this, the Peruvian Congress on May 24 declared Lopez Obrador “persona non grata” in Peru. While Peru’s Congress may be one of the most unpopular parliaments in the world — it has a 90% disapproval rate, according to a recent IEP poll — it had good reasons to pass its largely symbolic declaration against Lopez Obrador.
While Boluarte can be criticized for many things, constitutional experts agree that — contrary to Lopez Obrador’s claim’s — her appointment as Peru’s president was legal.
Boluarte was constitutionally proclaimed president in December after former leftist President Pedro Castillo was voted out of office by the Peruvian Congress for trying to stage a coup. Castillo was arrested after he announced on national television that he was dissolving Congress and would rule by decree.
When I read Lopez Obrador’s latest statements questioning the Peruvian government’s democratic credentials, I shook my head in disbelief.
Lopez Obrador is trying to come across as an unbending defender of democracy in Peru only three months after he gave a royal welcome in Mexico to Cuban dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel, whose country has not allowed a free election, or independent media, in more than six decades.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER IN THE MIAMI HERALD
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