Why can’t Peru get out of its political crisis?

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte has several investigations underway. One of them relates it to the violent death of dozens of protesters during protests against her government last year; another, for illicit enrichment and for not declaring expensive jewelry and watches which according to her they lent her; and one more for cover-up and against the administration of justice for the deactivation of the police team that supported the anti-corruption prosecutors investigating it.

All this in almost a year and a half in power, which he came to in a circumstantial manner.

Boluarte was vice president of Pedro Castillo, currently imprisoned for trying to dissolve Congress and install an “exception government” in December 2022, and was also his Minister of Development and Social Inclusion.

In fact, he has another investigation from that time for alleged money laundering due to the alleged illegal financing of the 2020 and 2021 electoral campaigns of the Peru Libre Party, of which he was a member along with Castillo.

According to an IPSOS survey in April, 8% of Peruvians approve of her management and 85% consider that she is involved in corruption cases. On Sunday, a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) showed that Boluarte’s approval fell to 5% in May, registering the lowest point in his entire administration.

For analysts, if President Boluarte remains in office it is because she has the protection of groups with their own interests. In addition, they express their concern about the deterioration of democracy in the country and the rule of law.

“There is a pact that this government maintains between the Executive and the Legislative that is very precarious and in which the Executive has very little negotiating power, therefore it is very at the mercy of Congress. The only way to stay in power is to stay together and that’s what they are doing,” she told the Voice of America, Carolina Trivelli, economist and researcher at the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP).

The expert sees little possibility of this pact being broken and if it happens “it will be because of the weaker side, which is the Executive, and the president who depends on Congress,” she stated after considering that this kind of “marriage of convenience” allows Congress follow and fulfill their own agenda, including changes to the Constitution without further debate, and have greater interference in electoral processes.

“We have a growing participation of illegal activities in the penetration of political life. Drug trafficking, illegal mining, encouraged by high prices there is illegal mining of copper and gold, illegal logging, various illegal businesses, extortion,” he said.

“And that is very dangerous. When you have lost the forms, the ideology, the coalitions and individual interests prevail, the vote becomes a currency. It is much easier for these illegal forces to penetrate politics and decisions. “, held.

Shielding Boluarte?

Boluarte has faced seven impeachment attempts in his 17 months in office, which did not succeed as he had the support of a coalition of right-wing and left-wing political groups in Parliament.

On May 17, the Congress rejected three requests to remove Boluarte from the position due to moral incapacity, and a week later her Government announced the presentation of a jurisdictional lawsuit against the Judiciary and the Prosecutor’s Office before the Constitutional Court “for impairment in the strict sense of the proper exercise of the powers and functions of the President of the Republic “, that is, according to consulted jurists, to stop the investigations against him.

This Monday, The Attorney General’s Office filed a constitutional complaint against him before Congress for alleged bribery in the luxury watches case.

Boluarte has not spoken with journalists since the beginning of April. His official activities are now limited due to claims spontaneously made by those who can access the events called, sometimes with secrecy.

Months ago they shook her and pulled her hair. She has recently been making adjustments to her communications team, close advisors and ministers.

The Ministry of the Interior has been the most unstable office of the Boluarte government, with six ministers already, amid an increase in crime, extortion and kidnappings. The last minister resigned after the dismantling of the police team that was investigating possible crimes involving the president, including her brother and her lawyer.

The fact that the government generates scandals, distracting the attention of public opinion, clears the way for Congress to continue making changes to the regulatory and regulatory frameworks, Trivelli stated. If Boluarte falls, “it is not convenient for Congress because he would have to call early elections. “Why would they lose that when now they have control and have an agenda in place that they are approving,” he stated.

And among one of the most recent scandals is a journalistic complaint that claims that the president was absent from her duties last year for several days to have some facial touch-ups, but the government, which avoided confirming or denying the surgical intervention, denied that Boluarte has left a power vacuum because he maintained that the president was signing decrees. No investigation was initiated by Congress or the Prosecutor’s Office.

Worry and what’s coming

“I have not seen any country in the entire region where democracy and the rule of law are deteriorating more rapidly than in Peru,” he told the VOA Will Freeman, expert in Latin American studies.

“Of course, I’m not saying that democracy is broken in Peru, of course not. “Peru is not Nicaragua, it is not El Salvador, what is happening is that the decline of democracy is happening very quickly.”

For the expert, there are three fundamental aspects to evaluate whether there is a deterioration of democracy in a country: An independent judiciary equipped to hold legislators and presidents accountable, a system in which changes to the Constitution and the form of government come with the popular consent and people can give their opinion, and that the elections are supervised by neutral arbitrators.

“And in each of those dimensions I think we have seen an enormous setback in Peru in the last year,” he said. “I have the perception that there is immense fatigue and confusion around what is happening in Peru. Confusing because there is no single president who surely concentrates power. “There is an autocratic Congressional coalition that is eroding the safeguards of democracy and the conditions for free and fair elections,” he added.

President Boluarte is sure that her term of government will end in 2026, the year in which there will be elections, in which some 25 or 30 candidates would run, according to experts. This would cause the country’s governance problems to continue, with low representation and forcing whoever becomes president to negotiate with a very atomized Congress.

“The transactionality of your vote will weigh more than your country vision,” said Trivelli.

For his part, Freeman considered that in the face of potential greater political instability, the OAS and the international community should increase their attention to Peru and pressure against a decline in democracy in the South American country.

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