On Wednesday, several presidents and world leaders will attend the swearing-in ceremony of Peru’s President-elect Pedro Castillo and other protocol events amidst the 200th anniversary of the Andean country’s independence from Spain.
RELATED:
Opposition Takes the Lead in Peru's Congress
Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez on Tuesday arrived in Lima. He was one of the first leaders to congratulate Castillo on his electoral victory, although the electoral authorities had not yet completed the ballot counting.
"I welcome that the brother people of Peru face their future in democracy and with institutional solidity," Fernandez stressed in this context, adding that he wanted to work with Castillo for a united Latin America.
On Monday, Bolivia’s ex-President Evo Morales also traveled to Peru. He assured to share political concepts with union leader Castillo and called on the Bolivian and Peruvian governments to design a bi-national cooperation agenda. He also suggested that these two nations and Argentina industrialize the production of lithium, which functions as a raw material for battery production
Uruguay’s chancellor Francisco Bustillo, King Felipe VI of Spain, and Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso will also attend the inauguration ceremony and hold bilateral meetings with other leaders such as the Chilean President Sebastian Piñera.
On July 19, Castillo was proclaimed President-elect by the National Elections Jury (JNE), which took a month and a half to review his far-right opponent Keiko Fujimori’s ballot-counting appeals. The union leader got 50.13 percent of the votes, beating his opponent with a difference of 44,263 ballots.
During his election campaign, Castillo promised to convene a Constituent Assembly to replace the constitution drawn up during the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and to give the State a greater role in the domestic economy.