On the night of Friday, August 5, the president peter castle He swore in a group of new ministers who entered the Executive to renew the cabinet led by Aníbal Torres, after the resignation presented by the president of the Council of Ministers was not accepted by the head of state.
One of the changes made by Pedro Castillo’s administration has occurred in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which César Landa’s departure was unexpectedly arranged to be replaced by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Mackay. But who is Rodríguez Mackay and what should be known about the new occupant of Torre Tagle?
The professional profile of the new chancellor
Miguel Angel Rodriguez Mackay55 years old, is a lawyer graduated from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. He has also served as an internationalist. From this profession, he has taught in different public universities, as well as in the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the OAS.
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Currently, he is president of the Peruvian Institute of International Law and International Relations, as well as a full member of the Peruvian Society of International Law.
His experience in the public sphere includes his participation in the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations between 2016 and 2017, in which he served as an advisor to the ministerial office. Likewise, during the administration of Javier Arce, he held the position of chief adviser to the office at the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation, a position in which he remained between June 2 and 7, 2022.
On the other hand, according to the Infogob portal, The minister was affiliated with the Peru Possible party for a period of two years, between 2015 and 2017. Coincidentally, this is the same organization in which President Pedro Castillo was active between 2005 and 2017, before joining the ranks of Peru Libre.
A designation…proper?
Although the lawyer has agreed to form part of the Government of Pedro Castillo, it should be noted that Miguel Rodríguez Mackay, during much of the current administration, has been critical of the current administration and has even insinuated the presence of a “communist” plot in the Executive.
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In articles published in July 2021 on the blog El Montonero, the current foreign minister questioned, among other issues, the role of Francisco Sagasti regarding the electoral process in the second round, as well as the intentions of the Government to which he has just joined, since he accused this administration of seeking to perpetuate himself in power.
“The new Government of Peru is going to want to stay in power and that is why they have gone, without hiding it, to an ad hoc cabinet that ensures, with today’s instruments, the capture of power, which they have already achieved, the maintenance in power . For this, they will go to a necessary stage of populism that allows them to win over the people to achieve their objectives; as the constituent Assembly to draft the Constitution that they are wanting at any price, and to enshrine succession in power, which would be the same as perpetuation in Peru”, he stated in a post written on July 29, 2021.
On the other hand, with the appointment of Rodríguez Mackay in the Government, it is doubtful whether they will continue promoting certain specific issues that at some point were relevant in Peru’s agenda of international commitments under Castillo’s command, such as the Escazu Agreementwhich the new chancellor has opposed and whose filing he considered a sample of “the good sense of Parliament to preserve the intangibility of national sovereignty untainted.”
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In favor of pardoning Fujimori
On December 27, 2017, Miguel Rodríguez Mackay wrote a column in the newspaper Correo in which he gave an opinion favorable to the pardon granted to the former dictator. Alberto Fujimori by the Government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski during Christmas Eve of that year. On that occasion, the new chancellor argued that the humanitarian pardon “invokes the superior nature of human rights, which are above positive law by prioritizing the humanity of law, also always superior to the written norm itself.”
“Fujimori did us a lot of damage and broke national morale, but he also freed us from Abimael Guzmán and his leadership, achieved peace with Ecuador and pulled us out of the economic abyss. So let’s have a balance. Let’s not be petty or ungrateful. He was convicted and spent more than a decade in prison. He should have opted for house arrest because of his age, ”Rodríguez Mackay highlighted.
Foreign Ministers during the Government of Pedro Castillo
- Héctor Béjar: July 29, 2021 – August 17, 2021
- Óscar Maurtua: August 20, 2021 – February 1, 2022
- Cesar Landa: February 1, 2022 – August 5, 2022
- Miguel Rodríguez Mackay: August 5, 2022 – present.