 Okay, here we go. Thank you so much, Juan. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America, CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. We broadcast in partnership with friends of Latin America and Task Force on the Americas every Wednesday for 30pm Pacific, 730pm Eastern. June 6 witness two significant elections in the Americas. One in Mexico, where a number of governmental seats were in play locally, regionally and nationally. This was a historic number of seats up for election, a historic high never before seen. But also on the six were second round presidential elections in Peru, and a leftist candidate triumphed over a right wing dynasty for the first time in Peruvian history. Joining us to discuss the results of the Peruvian elections on June 6. This is Juan Hong Chung, and he is a member of Democratic Socialists of America's ecologic eco socialist excuse me eco socialist working group. He is an environmental justice policy analyst and community organizer based in Detroit, and also for our audience. He's been raised in Peru so we are very lucky to have him with us this evening. He just flew back to Detroit this evening, just got off the plane from Peru so we're really very fortunate to have you with us. And, and we'll have news right from the right from the ground so welcome one so pleased to have you with us. I'm really excited to be here and like you said I just got off the plane. I was observing I was an official observer for the elections with the USA. So yeah, I'm happy to chat about. You know, these are the second rounds of the presidential elections. And maybe I can start with a brief overview of the first round as well and who Pedro Castillo is does that sound good. That sounds terrific. Perfect. So, I think June 6 is really a historical moment for Peruvians in terms of presidential elections, it is the first time that I left this candidate has moved to the second round in first place. So in the first round we had really large slate of candidates we had I think close to 12 candidates that we're trying to pass to the second round. Among them was Pedro Castillo who is a he's an indigenous rural school teacher. To be quite frank, I think that a lot of mainstream pundits were really discounted and a lot of the polling was saying for the first round that he was only going to get at most like 2% of the votes. However, during the first round he was actually the most voted candidate he ended up getting 20%. And I mean I think for most folks hearing that 20% might seem a little low but we had close to like 12 candidates for the first round. And then the second, the second most voted candidate was Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, a dictator from the 1990s. And she represents, as many people know, neoliberal policies that have truly impoverished so many Peruvians and also a really a time of a lot of violence, a lot of state-sponsored violence to leftist groups, also to activists, and really the privatization of a lot of social services. So as we're seeing in the US as well, an expansion of privatization and expansion of the neoliberal model, which includes a reduction of public spending on infrastructure and public institutions. So let's talk about what the Castillo campaign, what their messaging was and why it was so popular. Yeah, his messaging was really simple and really spoke to the average person. He used a pencil as his main symbol for his campaign, and he talked a lot about being a school teacher, being from the rural area, being a rondero. For people that don't know rondero is a form of self-management, is a form of indigenous self-management and self-defense. Between the 1980s and early 1990s, Peru went through a lot of a time of violence that we call the period of internal conflict and a lot of indigenous communities were suffering a lot of violence from paramilitary groups. And they organized in this groups called ronderos and Pedro Castillo comes from that group of people that have organized against paramilitary violence. I think his campaign was so successful, because he truly spoke to what I would call the forgotten communities of Peru. There's a really huge gap between rural and urban Peru. Lima, the capital city, is really wealthy. There's a really wealthy core and the rest of Peru has really been forgotten. But interestingly enough, those other parts of Peru are where a lot of the mining operations, where a lot of the resources come from, and the people living there were the ones that overwhelmingly voted for Pedro Castillo. So you are born and raised in Peru. One of the things that I have, and I think you'd be a really good person to comment on this, is one of the things I have consistently heard leading up to the first round elections and then certainly, most certainly going into the second round elections on June 6 was, and you've alluded to this, this division. There's Lima, Peru, and then there's the rest of the country. And there's a reason why within the OAS there's this subgroup called the Lima group, using the name of Lima, Peru as their right wing sub sector of the OAS. So talk a little bit about that cultural and economic divide to give our audience a little bit of context as to why people voted for Pedro Castillo outside of Lima. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I mean, it would take a long time to explain why there's a huge gap, but I think overall I would say that it comes from the history of colonialism. Basically Lima was the seat of power of the Spanish conquistadors when they came to Peru and it really has, it has become a huge metropolis that just extracts from other parts of the country. And in Lima itself, you can really find almost anything that you would find in most European or North American nations in terms of services, and even like really luxurious things like really like mansions and things like that. At the same time, even within Lima, there is a huge gap. I don't know if you or people in the audience have heard about the wall of shame. Lima is, people in Lima are well known for actually building walls between high income neighborhoods and low income neighborhoods. And the disparities is huge and I encourage people to just go look for pictures of Lima wall of shame and you would see that on one side you have shanty towns, and on the other side you have mansions with swimming pools and, and lots of other amenities. Wow, that's, so we'll have to Google that. That's a, that's a new phrase for me. Lima wall of shame. So, the first round elections, there were 18 presidential candidates, am I correct in that number, or close to it was a huge amount it was almost impossible to believe anybody could come out of that first round elections with any sort of percentage that would build confidence for the, for the, for the voters. Yeah, I think it was 18. Honestly, I can't quite remember the exact number. There were just so many, there were so so many I know at least well, but it is possible that there were 18. So going into the second round elections. We had Keko Fujimori, whose father was removed from the presidency as a criminal she's been in prison herself she has been indicted and still allowed to run for office, the highest office in the country. And then you have Pedro Castillo. Talk to us about what you saw, can you tell us where you were where what part of the country you were in observing on the six as part of the Democratic Socialists of America's delegation. Yeah, so we mostly stayed in Lima, but we decided also to go to a little bit of the outskirts of the city which, like I was saying, the closer you are to the, the core of Lima, it's very wealthy and the more you go to the outskirts. You start to see those disparities. So we went through a lot of the polling places, which in Peru tend to be high schools or or big venues, big public venues, and we didn't observe any irregularities in terms of voting. However, I have to say that there were a lot of irregularities in terms of how the media was portraying the race. The media has played a really huge role in really shimping the narrative of around who is Pedro Castillo who is Keko Fujimori and they clearly cited with Keko Fujimori. And there was a really, a really awful campaign calling Pedro Castillo a terrorist calling him a communist when none of his proposals are actually related to communism. Interesting to me, communism, it makes me think of how people, people in the United States, the media, the US State Department, how they frame Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and of course anybody that any political candidate at any level throughout America who runs on a populist platform is inferred to be aligned with the nations that the US is clearly against. And I love and I bring this up because I love that the symbol of Pedro Castillo's campaign was the pencil. And the pencil is such a huge positive and important image of the Cuba Literacy Project of 1961, in which they brought their, they had 6% of their population before the revolution could read and write and within a year, almost 100% were reading and writing at the first grade level. And that pencil was the, it was such a strong important image for that campaign and so was, you know, on a very personal level it was really kind of cool to see the Castillo campaign use the pencil as well for everything that that infers. Yeah, that was really a great message. So let's talk about. You mentioned your regularity specific to the media. Can you talk to us about what media it was? Was it Peruvian, international, US, all of the above? What were the, what were the outlets you were witnessing? Yeah, mostly Peruvian media and every printed media in Peru there are a lot of kiosks with newspapers and you would just see so many negative headlines about Pedro Castillo and his party or any member of his party. It was heavily, heavily scrutinized for absolutely anything she would say publicly to the point that I think that a lot of people really started believing into that narrative. There is a big narrative in Peru that Pedro Castillo is going to turn Peru into Venezuela. Venezuela, because of the crisis there, because of the US blockade, economic blockade. There's even Peru fear that we're going to, to turn into that and I don't think people are critical enough to understand all the geopolitics of that. And the media, printed media also TV channels, newscasters. Right now there's a huge scandal. There was a TV news program that recently had six staff members quit. And I think this just happened either yesterday or two days ago. But they quit because they went public saying that their director was telling them that they needed to favor cake of Fujimori's campaign. So this is huge. I think that from speaking to other Peruvians, one of the entities that I think has lost coming out of the election is trust in the media in general. I think that people are and I'm going to say traditional media. I think that people are now starting to look at alternative media like podcast or or online resources. But traditional printed and news and TV news have been heavily criticized. As here in the States, I wish it was more openly cruise and more understood. So let's talk about with the with the failure or the, the pointedness or singularity of the traditional media. Let's talk about social media. How is the social media influencing the Peruvian elections. I think social media played a big role. A lot of Peruvians own a smartphone or some sort of mobile device, even in lower income sectors. And I think that that really has that really created a really created an alternative way for people to share news or share information about Pedro Castillo. And I think that that mostly help in urban areas. However, I think that the most effective part of Pedro Castillo's campaign was not necessarily social media. It was really a lot of his in person rallies and going to a lot of these forgotten areas going to a lot of these suffer all the brunt of mining extraction or logging or petroleum extraction. So, you've mentioned mining and extract extraction industries. A couple of times since we started talking. What, what is the Castillo campaign vision plan for the economy specific to the extraction industry. Has he laid out a vision for, for future plans for that specific segment of the economy. Yeah, he has mentioned a couple of times that he wants to renegotiate some of those contracts. A lot of them are with transnational corporations. I'm a Canadian in US mining corporations and I believe that since the Fujimori Constitution of 93, a lot of these transnational corporations are allowed to have contracts that cannot be changed. He actually almost become a law. I actually, I'm not super familiar with the exact details, but one of his campaign promises is to renegotiate those contracts. And that actually has been a little bit controversial because as, as you might see and I think this happens in the US through the right wing media immediately just starts pounding on like you know investments are going to leave. Where is he going to get money from or for social programs. So he wants to renegotiate this extractive, extractive industry contracts so that more money can stay within Peru to implement all the, all the infrastructure needs and all the social services needs prioritizing indigenous and peasant communities. Another theme we're seeing, well extraction industry, we see all over the Americas all over the world that our work being specific to Latin America and the Caribbean we see transnational corporations involved in the extraction industry. Throughout the Americas, we've seen the indigenous communities and I'm thinking specifically of Bolivia, and of course bear the chaser is in Honduras, who have fought so strongly to not necessarily eliminate that economic sector, but to have control over how it's introduced to a community when it's introduced to the community and how it's managed within the community, and also pushing for governmental representatives who want to see profits remain in the country as a 100% colonial model where the where the minerals are extracted at the cost of the local people and the profits are 100% gained outside the country. So, and Rafael Correa was very good at explaining that to people when he maintained extractionism as part of the Ecuador economy. So you see something similar to that happening in Peru, a more of a control of those industries to benefit the people of Peru and not external entities. Yeah, this is a topic that I think is. It's very interesting. And I say it because my background is in ecological issues and ecological conflict and I think that there is still attention between indigenous communities and the state in general I think that indigenous people are asking for more of a self management approach to those natural resources in their territories. I think that, like you said they want more control they want more ownership, but they also want to really have a say on what gets extracted from that person. So in Peru, we've had several mining conflicts within the past like 10 years that have resulted in the death of many, many indigenous people. And one of the main issues that Pedro Castillo has emphasized in his campaign is that he's going to allow communities to decide whether they want to exploit those mining resources. That of course want to do that. And like you said they want to reap those benefits, but there are also some communities that do not want to go into that mining extractive industry and they'd rather stay with an agricultural model which is what they've been doing for a long time. So let's, I'm happy to say that our guest who observed elections in Mexico has been able to join us as well. Let's talk about what you were in Peru as part of the Democratic Socialists of America's delegation. Was this an accredited delegation or did you put a delegation to just go and freely observe? We originally had, we put a delegation together with the hopes of also getting accredited, but I think early in the process I think something happened and I believe it has to do with the Democratic Socialists of America being a leftist organization. They apply for official credentials. And we, to the JNE, which is the Jurado Nacional de Liciones, which is the organism, the state organism that is actually responsible for accrediting international delegations. And what happened was that we started the process within the timeframe that they told us we were supposed to, which is legally 15 days before the elections. So we started it within that timeframe. However, days after, so I mean, let me backtrack a little, I guess, so we started the process, we heard back from them saying like, you know, you need to change a few things, you're missing this document. And we submitted all our amendments and we submitted our credentials application. And then, or about a week and a half, we heard nothing, we kept calling them saying like, oh, when are we getting our credentials and whatnot. And the day before we had to depart to Peru, they told us, you're actually submitting this late, so we're not going to approve your credentials. When we said 15 days before the elections, we meant the whole electoral process, so you needed to apply 15 days before the first round, which they never ever mentioned that in any of our communications. So I think that they interpreted the law in a way in which it was not going to be favorable to us. But you went anyway, and how many participated on your delegation? Well, you were, I think, six or seven, I'm trying to remember. We had the chair of the International Committee or PSA, he was our delegation chair, and we had two elected officials from the United States, another man from Chicago, and an assembly woman from the state of New York, and that would be three, four. I think we were five. I'm trying to remember who else was there. But we were able to connect with other leftist delegations to with Progressive International, and also. You also denied accreditation. I think we were given like paperwork after paperwork after paperwork until it became impossible to make the deadline. So that's really, yeah, but you went, and the leftist candidate won. And so what do you see this as emblematic for the future of Peru and Latin America? I think that, like I said earlier, it is a historic moment. We, for the first time in so long, we have a leftist precedent. And it is so important because it is a rejection of all the neoliberal policies of the past like 3040 years. It is also a rejection of just colonialism and racism, which I believe are so entrenched in having an indigenous, peasant school teacher be our precedent is really, is really unprecedented. And it's really hopeful, I think, for the whole region. I think with what's going on in Chile and Colombia, and now in Peru, I think that in South America, there is definitely a new way to the left. That is challenging the Washington Consensus. It's challenging the neoliberal order. It's exciting. It's very exciting and we're seeing it come from the ground up, which is really powerful and very exciting. So one, we have our guest from Mexico was able to join us. And so I wonder if you can stay with us. Let's have Alina talk to us about the elections in Mexico on the six, but please stay with us. And perhaps we can do a little bit of comparing and contrasting between the two countries. So thank you one and I want to welcome to our audience Alina Duarte Alina is a longtime friend of code pink and and me personally she is. She is born and raised in Mexico. She is a correspondent for canal cut Thursday here in Mexico City, and also correspondent for our scene sensor, which is an online YouTube YouTube news program in Spanish broadcast in the United States on YouTube so welcome Alina so happy to have you with us. And so let's talk about what happened here in in Mexico on June 6 it was a historic election with a historic number of seats throughout the country up for election regionally locally regionally and nationally. Why don't, why don't we start with a little bit of context leading up to sun up to the six and then let's talk about what happened on the six. Perfect well third thanks for having me once again here in what's what's going on. What's going on. Yeah, exactly. Well, a lot is going on here in Mexico, especially in Mexico City I'm going to tell why, but first just to let the people know how big were these elections of last Sunday and 20,000 positions were in dispute. Governors mayors councils as you said it were a regional elections national elections and with a lot of like the leftist the leftist party here in Mexico morena has. A bad time, because that's what the media, the corporate media are saying now that a morena lost this time as part of the popularity of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, what I'm going to try to say is that from the 5015 elections in the states morena won 11th of the Congress of 500 congressmen and morena won more than 250. In the case of Mexico City, I know it's hard because this was the most important I guess a like state supporting ambos administration during the last 10 years when he was governor here in Mexico City. And what we saw last Sunday was really painful for for morena because these as an historic leftist state. And now they lost the health of the of the city. And there's so many explanations and I and I think that the public who is watching this, it might understand it better when we talk about Ecuador, for example, that even when they are a progressive where a progressive government was a progressive government, and what we saw during the last elections was that the medium class also the feminist movement the most progressive movement movements were saying like the party of Rafael Correa. Now we don't think it's the most progressive and they're not listening to us. And that's exactly what happened here in Mexico City. And now we're fighting against against each other in the in the party inside, while the people were asking for more a progressive policy policies, but at the same time, it was only in the city because as I said before, 11 of the 15 states where they won the elections so I mean now the rest of the country are more supportive of Andrés Manuel López Obrador than in Mexico City. So I don't think it's like something really bad actually what I was saying is that it's better for left forces here in Mexico that this happened in 2021 than just waiting to see what could have happened in 2024 in the elections of president. And I don't know who's going to be the person who's going to run for for being the next president of the left parties here in Mexico but what can I say is that the media corporation like the media outlets are saying that Morena just lost that Andrés Manuel doesn't have any kind of support here in Mexico and it's something fake news. I don't want to say fake news as Trump was saying all the time but clearly they have an agenda against the president here in Mexico and that's not true. Also, the same things that we have seen during the last years in Latin America happened here in Mexico also with this corporate media with these alliances not only between the right wing parties is something that it was amazing, because in a moment we thought that this was kind of impossible with the PRI and the PAN and the parties who were in power for the last, I don't know, like 80, 90 years in this country now they had this alliance against Amlos Party, Morena, and also they have the support of the OAS with Almagro, the party members of the party of Vicente Fox maybe you remember this president who was like our Donald Trump here in Mexico years ago. Well, the members of this party were asking for help at the OAS saying that here in Mexico we don't have democracy so maybe we should do something against Amlos. So we saw exactly what happened in Ecuador and Bolivia and with all of these progressive governments that they have all of these right wing parties against the not only against the government but also with these alliances of the OAS. We saw the National Electoral Institute here in Mexico being partial for the last year against Amlos, against Morena benefiting obviously right wing parties, they cancel the candidates for running for governors for municipalities for all kind of like positions here in Mexico. So I think even with all of these kind of issues against the government against this administration what we saw was amazing in the rest of the country not maybe here in Mexico City and that's what all of the media outlets are talking about that they lost the whole city and it's something of course that I'm worried about because we saw during the last elections in Ecuador how the Correismo, the party of Rafael Correa lost the capital, lost Quito, no there are so many things to think about and we lost it. So now I think we don't have to be wondering what can happen here in this country. We saw it for the last 20 years in Latin America. We saw how difficult it was for these progressive movements to make these alliances with social movements, with the feminist movement, with the indigenous movement and Mexico is kind of repeating the same things. So I think now Morena and not maybe all of the party, but at least for example, the general secretary, Cicali Hernandez, and a lot of people like this left party, the left part of this party. Yeah, because there is a right wing part of the party who's also trying to make these alliances with these right wing parties that are publicly right wing parties that work with Peña Nieto's government, with Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón. So I think the most progressive part of Morena are saying we need to think what we've been doing wrong, what we need to do, maybe we need to reconsider not being only this left party saying all kind of people are welcome. So you have these people representing the bougies in this country and the interests of the right wing, and you have also working class people, you have leaders of social movements, so Morena it's not a class party. So now they are, I think they're reconsidering after the results what they're going to do. And I'm glad, as I said before, that this happened in 2021, that it's happened now and we have three more years to reconsider what can we do for the next presidential election instead of just been waiting and thinking that Morena was doing good. People definitely are saying yeah we, and that's something really important because even when they lost the election here in Mexico City, the approval of AMLO is more than 60% in the middle of a pandemic. So what people are saying is like okay we're going to support the president but we are not going to support a party that are fighting between each other that they don't have like a class consciousness or they are not representing the feminist movement. So when they indigenous movement so I think it's important. That doesn't mean that the people are just going to support the right wing parties, they are supporting the president if the president says something they're going to do it actually the, they are considering all the time they're considering and showing the support to AMLO in front of National Palace in the mornings you know, he has a lot of support all the time, every time that he goes to the states he has a lot of support. But at the same time, the people are not going to support a party who are just making a mess and doing a mess and doing wrong. So that's really important, I think we have another. I mean, when I say we, it's like all the progressive movements and parties and forces here in Mexico I think we have a now an opportunity to reconsider alliances but not alliances between parties not alliances for going just to vote. I mean a class alliances, general alliances with consciousness. So I think for us. Change happened from the ground. You and I have talked about this. You, you want to see the change and one has said this to that, you know, with Peru the movement is needs to come from the ground, and in Peru it's been indigenous people, it's been working people teachers union people, and, and we saw the success of that in Bolivia. And we've seen the lack of that in in Ecuador. And so this is interesting that you have mentioned how the the June 6 elections turned out in the capital in Mexico City CDMX versus the rest of the country the rest of country you mentioned 11 of 15 states voted more than the capital did not. And in Peru one it was the same you had Lima against the and then the rest of the country, the rest of the country voting in Peru for progressive for more progressive more leftist candidate and and vision for the country. And here in Mexico, it sounds like a very similar thing happened. Yeah, and I mean, I don't want to be tough. I don't want to be tough saying like oh I'm low doesn't know how to do it because this happened for the last 20 years in Latin America when we saw that and it I mean it's natural that all of the leaders of the social movements, all of the progressive leaders and people now are part in the of the government. But the problem is that they left the streets they left the schools they left the media. So we are repeating exactly the same that happened in Ecuador during the last year that they lost not because they're not progressive. It's because it is not enough and they need to make this kind of alliances and reconsider that it's not really going on both people are saying we need to organize we need more we need to build something different from what we saw. And I mean I'm low and he wasn't part of these elites he was a leader, a real leader of the social movements and making alliances is how he won in 2018. It wouldn't have like it was impossible to think, even that he could win with without alliances and just thinking about his popularity. He won because he was a marching and mobilizing and supporting the teachers the social movements, the indigenous. So that was Samlo in 2018. So now it's complicated not only for Amlo but for all these progressive governments in the region and how to keep building this movement while they're a government so it's not something like it's only here happening like happening only here in Mexico, but of course that we need to reconsider not only like the mistakes of the party because it's not enough just to think, for example in Venezuela what the PSV is doing or how mass is doing in Bolivia, or Revolución Ciudadana in Ecuador. I mean it's more than that it's about how we built alliances with the teachers with the students and, and I know it's difficult for because for the last 20 years here in Mexico for the last 20 years I mean since the 80s, all of the social movements have been struggling has been attacked by the governments by the neoliberalism and now in the middle of a pandemic I think it's unfair just to say let's mobilize and let's do something. And of course they kind of do that. And we're in the middle of a pandemic in Mexico, and we have, we, we have had, I don't know how many people who have died for the last, for the last year. It's difficult to, to think that we, we can build something just tomorrow, the day after the elections. But I think we have a big opportunity now, the party, Morena, of course is thinking what they're going to do. I've been talking to a lot of the members who are like members of the party who are saying like okay let's see maybe the how we can have their support, and not only in terms of voting. And that's why it's very important just to say it's like a commercial here. We are heading we are planning and we are building a social movement with these demanding justice during the last decades with the with the last governments in a popular and I don't know how to say like we are going to organize, we are asking the people to vote the next August the first, and we collected a more than 2.5 million of signatures last September, asking like do you want justice, and just to finish this is for the prior president. Yeah, exactly. So, next, next, August the first we need 37 million of people voting. I mean, it's not, it's not something like it, like be immediate. Just to think that people are going to vote and now we're going to have justice for all the crimes that the governments of Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón and Vicente Fox did in the last years. But what we are saying is this is an opportunity now to build a social movement in national and national structure and it's happening. I'm really, really happy that this is happening. People from all over the country are now organizing themselves. It's always these demands of justice, local justice, state justice, national justice, and they're saying we need to stop, for example, extractivism, we need to stop about like, for example, like what happened in Ayotzinapa, the people are joining us just to say like we need justice for the 43 students who were detained and disappeared. I mean, in the north, after this is so bad, like the war against drug cartels that started here in 2006, people are organizing themselves and saying like, okay, let's do something against the impunity of what happened. So this specific thing that's going to happen next August the 1st, it's going to be really important for Mexicans. And also I think what it's also important to say about the elections of last Sunday is that next year the opposition here in Mexico will have the opportunity to quit the president. It's the midterm of the government of AMLO. So now in the constitution, now we said that the opposition can start a referendum here in Mexico against the president. So it was important for us to let the people know that if we allow them just to grow in terms of electoral votes or whatever, they can start this next year. I don't think they can do it. They don't have the super majority to do that, correct? Yeah, no, but even what I'm scared about is that usually the right wing parties here in Mexico, they don't take the streets. For the last three years, they were just defeated. They had no power here in Mexico. But what we saw in the last elections is that even when Morena won the majority, the votes for the opposition grew up. So that's important to say and just to keep an eye on that. And also we need to think in what's going to happen in 2024 and not only in terms of who's going to be the next president, but in terms of not repeating the mistakes of Latin America in the last 20 years. I don't think we are here in Mexico. We have a great big problem that we are always looking to the north. We are always looking to the U.S. And the people don't really know what's going on in Latin America, even when culturally and politically or socially, we are pretty the same to Latin America. People because of Hollywood, because of corporate media, because of everything, they're always looking at the north. So people are not understanding what's going on in Latin America. They don't understand who is the memorial is, they don't understand who was with Travis. So even when I understand who Pedro Castillo is. Yeah, and they don't, they don't, which was a huge problem. It's not only that they don't understand. It's fascinating to me living here and seeing and seeing that that it's not so online. Well, Mexico is part of North America since the creation of NAFTA and there is very much. It's interesting. I would say for, for those of you from Peru one, there's a there's a much different a much broader level. Peru's not on the border doesn't have a 3000 mile border with the United States. Yeah, exactly. And we, we are one, I don't know 135 million of Mexicans here in Mexico, and 35 million of Mexicans in the US. So it's not something just of being anti-imperial is the family. And that's what I've been saying all the time is like, of course, I would love that. So just one day wake up and say like, we're going to stop with this dependence off of the US and we're going to declare ourselves anti-imperialist, but it's not about that. We are like our structures like in economics, politics and everything with 35 millions of people in the US. And of course, it's not only about a I'm low saying we don't like the US and that's why they are really close with Biden's administration. He was really close of Trump's administration. I mean, even when when people inside the government might say we need to stop this relationship. So unequal, but it's something that it's not going to happen the next at least 20 or three years. What I was saying is like, we have now the opportunity after these elections of think what we're going to do as a progressive movement progressive. I don't know like the party and all of the alliances what we that we can do, but not in terms of just party is not in terms of just going both in terms of building these movements that we need in 2021 we don't. Enough we've seen what happened in Bolivia, even with these alliances with part of the oligarchs that they were saying like okay we maintain these alliances are not going to complain they're not going to do anything and in the first opportunity they had, they just contribute to a coup. So in Ecuador, it was the same even when they were thinking only in an electoral terms, they lost the elections they didn't have the support of the indigenous movement they didn't have the support of the feminist movement. I think with all of these things on mind, we can, we can, we can build a real social movement, we need to put some pressure on the government just to think about it all the mistakes, and for example in the me as a journalist. I'm thinking in the role of the public media. Here, they're always saying like we need to be neutral. And it's like, really, they are thinking about neutrality in the TV in the public channels, well, they have 99% of the corporate media attacking them like all the time. So those kind of mistakes I mean we're, we kind of repeat that that kind of thing so let's see what happened for next at least months. And now in the party, they're going to rebuild the party because they were, they were waiting for the elections to change for example the president of the party the general secretary. And that's what we are going to see in the next month. In terms of government. And today, it was not that like a big news, but now I'm low change one of their ministries of Acienda I don't know how to say like, I don't know like the. Well, one of the ministries not that important is not the fence is not something, but we're going to see, and it's something that they that we are waiting for that maybe there are some a ministries who are going to just, I don't know who who are going to be the new ones but we're going to see some changes in the government. And also I don't know if the media and the public media I got to take some some like kind of a decision so what to do for next the rest of the administration. Well, there was a lot, a lot on the table the last last Sunday, but for me the most important thing is that now we have the opportunity to rethink to rebuild what we've been doing for the last at least two years and a half. So, so the six was a big day to a big day in Peru big day in Mexico and it's fascinating to hear everything that's in play internally with impartial more and within the government itself here in Mexico and I know you know Lena you and I have talked how important it is to have the social movements the movement on the ground through from the streets and community up and, and one this this is what you witnessed on the six with the Castillo campaign that those were the people he appealed to those were the people he motivated, and those are the people that turned out and voted, and that's the energy when it's such a, and why how we've talked about this theme this is a recurring theme on our program how important it is for the candidates to come out of the movement versus a candidate creating the movement has to come out and then you've got and whether than whether the party is in power or not you still have that power base, as we saw it with the moss in in Bolivia, you know, lost lost the presidency in a coup but we're able to hold the power base together and come back. So, so what any closing any closing comments one what are you. What would you like to add before I let you both go. Yeah, I just want to add that I agree with that assessment of Latin America, I think that we really need popular movements to really guide the electoral, electoral politics. I think that in Peru. I think that there is a little bit of a disconnect sometimes between a more technocratic left who often doesn't look at popular movements and and Pedro Castillo did that greatly. He spoke to the average Peruvian and he motivated us to just like come out and vote for him. The thing that I want to mention to that I think was different from what happened in Ecuador to when there were two leftist candidates is that in Peru. And I am, I think this was huge for Pedro Castillo winning was that the left aligned behind him, even though there were some ideological differences between leftist parties and Peru they all aligned behind him. And I think that the left wins when it's able to carry the popular sentiment the popular movements but also when it stays together and it doesn't like just fight between each other. Yeah, yeah, the unity versus the factionalization. That's a huge, huge point to make. So I want to, I want to thank both of our guests for this fabulous hour of conversation. I learned a lot and I hope our audience did as well. So thank you Alina Duarte here in Mexico City Alina's with canal 14 and since ensura and one Hong Chun from Detroit just in tonight from Peru literally got off the plane and plugged into his laptop to talk to us and one just to remind the audience is an eco socialist with a democratic socialist of America, and, and a community organizer based in Detroit so thank you both of us a pleasure to have this conversation I'm so thankful for your time and was a great educational opportunity for myself and the audience, and we'll see you next time. And I can just remind our audience that what the F is going on in Latin America broadcast on YouTube live every Wednesday 430pm Pacific 730pm Eastern, and also don't forget to watch code pink radio every Thursday 11am Eastern 8am Pacific on WBAI New York City WPFW Washington DC. Okay everyone. Thanks again. So great to have this conversation. Thank you.