[We publish the following material from Partido Socialista de Los Trabajadores(Peru), a Trotskyist organization with more than 50 years of existence, currently without international affiliation]
PST PERU 2/18/26
José Jerí has been ousted by the same corrupt and reactionary Congress that cares nothing about solving the problems of the poor and working people of Peru. The same Congress that entrusted him with the presidency and has supported him until today, without addressing the accusations of sexual abuse, illicit enrichment or his responsibility for the repression last November 15.
Why did they remove him? Because Jerí’s continuity at the head of the government put his electoral chances at risk.
It was not sustainable, from a voting perspective, to support a president who met secretly with businessmen with whom the State has contracts and used the government palace to hold parties and, everything indicates, take advantage of his power to obtain sexual favors.
It was also not possible to sustain a government that, having tried to identify itself with Salvadoran dictator Bukele to give the impression that something was being done against organized crime gangs, has shown its complete failure, in the midst of continuous murders of transport workers in Lima, Callao and other large cities, leading to discontent and popular mobilization…
In other words, except for Fujimorismo, no one has wanted to carry that dead weight called José Jerí, in the face of April 12 elections.
Union leaderships prevented working people from defeating Jerí.
The workers and poor people had no interest in carrying that load either.
As soon as he was imposed by Congress, mobilized youth together with important workers and popular sectors came out to confront and overthrow Jerí. The great mobilization of November 15, harshly repressed by the government, expressed this intention.
However, national union leaderships, mainly the leadership of the CGTP (undemocratically controlled by the Communist Party), renounced organizing and leading this struggle, in order to embrace their own electoral interests.
A victory of the workers’ and people’s struggle would have put on the defensive, the corrupt pact of the Congress parties, and would have placed at the foreground, the demands of the workers’ and people’s organizations, as happened with the agricultural workers’ strike after the fall of Merino, which ended up overturning the Fujimori Agrarian Law.
It didn’t turn out that way. With this, the reformist, self-proclaimed “left” parties, have betrayed the immediate interests of the working class and popular sectors, and as an indirect consequence they have even handed over their own electoral possibilities, based on which they have sold out the struggle.
Nothing to look forward to
Being the same corrupt and reactionary Congress, the one that will elect the next president, workers and poor people have nothing positive to look forward to.
It will be a government that is equally corrupt, reactionary and incapable of solving the most heartfelt demands of the working class and the people, which will maintain the repressive «state of emergency» rule imposed by Jeri, to guarantee an electoral process tailored to the same parties in Congress.
Therefore, the only way for the workers and the people is to resume our true and consistent mobilization. It is clear that the national leaders are focused on the elections and not in organizing the struggle. That is why it is urgent that we discuss in every factory, mine, university and workplace, the need to go on a great national strike, as carried out by transport workers, to demand concrete and immediate solutions to our problems and demands.
We have no reason to expect any change or solution from the new government, nor one elected by Congress, or elected in April/June.
RESUME THE WORKERS’ AND POPULAR MOVILIZATIONS!
GENERAL ASSEMBLIES TO DISCUSS AND VOTE ON THE UNITARY MOBILIZATION!
JAIL AND IMMEDIATE CONFISCATION OF THE ACCOUNTS AND ASSETS OF ALL THE CORRUPT, STARTING WITH JERÍ!
PLAN OF STRUGGLE AND NATIONAL STRIKE AGAINST CRIME, IN DEFENSE OF LABOR, AGAINST POLICE AND ARMED FORCES IMPUNITY, FOR THE TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CORRUPT AND MURDERERS!
