What is the origin of the political crisis that is shaking Peru?

First modification: 01/19/2023 – 01:09

Peru lives turbulent days of protests against the new government of Dina Boluarte. Numerous regions are against the new president, who came to power after the deposition of Pedro Castillo by Congress after what was considered an attempted self-coup. A context that has already left dozens dead due to police repression and that is a reflection of the crisis situation that this Andean nation has been suffering for years and that has exploded in recent weeks.

The figure that certifies this crisis is that since the year 2000 11 presidents have passed through the Pizarro Palace, an extremely high number considering that the presidential term in Peru is five years. That is why, in order to better understand the situation, it is necessary to go back, precisely to that date, the year in which the controversial former president Alberto Fujimori was ousted and fled to Peru.

By that time, Fujimori had been in power for 10 years and had been re-elected for a third term. This former president, who had come to power with the speech of an anti-establishment politician, had obtained great power since 1992, when the ‘Fujimorazo’ took place, a self-coup that allowed him to dissolve parliament with the support of the Army and take the power of all the state organs of Peru.

His method of government was controversial inside and outside Peru due to its high degree of authoritarianism and repression against part of the population. Those who supported him defended his economic management at a time of deep inflationary crisis for Peru and his fight against the Shining Path guerrilla, but those who criticized him argued the constant human rights violations suffered by thousands of Peruvians. His end came on November 21, 2000. He was forced to resign due to corruption cases and fled to Japan. But the shadow of Fujimori would continue to be present and would influence Peruvian politics for years to come.

After Fujimori, Peru experienced a process of democratic flourishing and relative stability in which Alejandro Toledo came to power between 2001 and 2006, Alan García between 2006 and 2011, and Ollanta Humala between 2011 and 2016. The Andean nation even became in an example to follow in the region in the economic panorama.

Corruption cases affected several former presidents and discredited politics

However, during Humala’s tenure, the Odebrecht case broke out, a Brazilian construction company that financed political campaigns in Latin America in exchange for concessions for public works. This plot affected Humala himself and his wife shortly after finishing his term and landed them in prison, but also former president Alejandro Toledo, who is currently a fugitive and awaiting extradition by the United States, and former president Alan García, who during his investigation committed suicide in April 2019.

To these cases we must add that of Alberto Fujimori, who was arrested in 2007 and is being held in prison for crimes against humanity, corruption and espionage, among others. His imprisonment contributed to increasing a climate of polarization that had already been growing since his daughter Keiko Fujimori decided to run for the presidency to return Fujimori to power.

Keiko was a candidate in 2011, 2016 and 2021. Elections that she lost by a narrow margin and that demonstrated the division that exists in this country around the management of her father and the Fujimori family. The clearest example is the 2016 election, when Pedro Pablo Kuczynsky (PPK) managed to defeat Fujimori by only 40,000 votes. That time, all the forces opposed to that movement came together to vote against him, but once they achieved their goal of defeating him at the polls, there was never a common political project and PPK found itself alone before a congress dominated by Fujimori forces.

Political polarization around Fujimorism and anti-Fujimorism

The problem is that anti-Fujimorismo is not a political movement in itself, it is simply a reaction against the authoritarian government that dominated Peru for ten years. But beyond this rejection, these forces are unable to reach a consensus that allows the governability of the presidents that have passed in this nation in recent years because there is great political heterogeneity in these parties.

This is how in 2018, after less than two years at the head of the Presidency, Pedro Pablo Kuczynsky was forced to resign his position. The Peruvian Congress tried for months to squander all possible action that came from the government, it was the protagonist of several attempts to depose it and was a fundamental part of promoting ungovernability and a paralysis that the ex-president was finally unable to overcome. In addition, behind him there were suspicions of being involved in the Odebrecht case, a matter that would lead him to house arrest and that is still being investigated.

His successor was Vice President Martín Vizcarra, who also found himself constantly rejected by Fujimorismo and repeated attempts to hinder his government action through Congress. The former president, in fact, came to suffer two vacancy motions due to moral incapacity, an archaic and abstract concept that originally referred to the president suffering from mental illness, but which the Peruvian Congress began to use repeatedly to try to kill off the president The first failed, but the second in November 2020 succeeded.

After Vizcarra, Peru went through a period of profound instability in which there were two presidents in just a few months in an unprecedented institutional crisis. Manuel Merino was not in office for even a week due to the protests generated by his appointment. And his substitute, Francisco Sagasti, was in charge of leading the country until the April 2021 elections.

Some elections that were not much better. Almost 20 candidates appeared in the first round without any of them obtaining a percentage of the representative vote. In fact, the winner in the first round, Pedro Castillo, obtained only 18.9% of the vote. However, when he faced Keiko Fujimori in the second round, he was able to win thanks to the rejection of her.

This victory did not bring any solution. Castillo found himself incapable of governing when faced with a deeply fragmented Congress that opened several investigations against him for corruption, prohibited him from leaving the country, and went so far as to present three motions for moral vacancy, of which only the last one succeeded after Castillo tried to dissolve Congress in a gesture that was interpreted as a failed self-coup that brought Dina Boluarte to power.

Something that has led to a further deterioration of the crisis and the current situation of uncertainty. The most worrying thing is that it is unknown if there can be a solution to a problem that is more structural than temporary and that has been increasing until it affects other fields, such as the social. And that it could even hit the economy, which during this time has remained strong despite the constant political crises. An explosive combination that can be dangerous for Peru.