The crisis in Peru shows no sign of easing. With the death toll climbing, protesters have now reached the capital. Meanwhile, political leaders are struggling to come to an agreement about a way out of a violent showdown that is crippling the economy, worsening poverty and threatening the survival of Peru’s democracy.
The unrest erupted in December, when then-President Pedro Castillo, in an effort to avert impeachment, announced that he was disbanding Congress and would rule by decree. The auto-golpe, or self-coup, failed, and Castillo was promptly imprisoned, bringing an end to his chaotic presidency and elevating his then-vice president, Dina Boluarte, to the top job.
In her first speech as president, Boluarte took a decidedly conciliatory line, calling for unity and a chance to lead the country out of its morass. “I ask for time to rescue our country from corruption and incompetence,” she pleaded. But Castillo’s backers would have none of it. For once one of their own—a poor, mixed-race man from the rural periphery—had been elected president. And now he was in prison.
The fact that Boluarte is, like Castillo, a leftist who hails from the country’s impoverished south and speaks the Indigenous Quechua language did nothing to allay the fury of her predecessor’s supporters. Castillo’s electoral victory had brought hope to Peru’s disenfranchised, who have long complained about poverty and inequality, charging that the white elites in Lima have rigged the political system for their own benefit.
They now view Boluarte as a traitor, and they are demanding that she resign and that new elections be called. Her stock has fallen even more in light of the heavy-handed response to the protests by police and Peruvian security forces. Some 58 people have been killed so far, most of them protesters. Although the bulk of the excesses have come from government forces, protesters have committed some of their own. In one incident that shocked the country, a policeman died after being set on fire. Tensions are dangerously high.
So far, Boluarte has refused to resign. She maintains she has no interest in remaining in office, as she tries to calm the country and carve a path forward, essentially by trying to move as fast as possible to new elections.
Members of Congress have been reluctant to reschedule the vote, in part because new elections will bring an end to their terms, and under current rules they cannot be reelected. Still, in December, Congress agreed to move the 2026 election up to April 2024, with an eye to changing the rules prohibiting reelection in the meantime. But protests continued to intensify, recently reaching the capital, Lima. Now, Boluarte hopes that if she can announce that elections will be held this year, the protesters will go home. But persuading legislators to fall in line is still no easy task.
Her plan to hold the vote this year so that a new president can take office on Jan. 1, 2024, was rejected by Congress on Friday. By Monday, Congress voted by the narrowest margin to reconsider the matter.
Boluarte hopes that if she can announce that elections will be held this year, the protesters will go home. But persuading Congress to fall in line is still no easy task.
The risks for the country are mounting. The last time Peruvians voted, the two top vote-getters came from the far left and the far right, setting up a runoff that further polarized the country. A new vote might help ease Peru’s problems, but holding an election in the midst of such high tensions could also worsen the country’s explosive polarization.
It’s unclear what will happen if Congress again rejects Boluarte’s plan or if, in the end, she decides to accede to the demonstrators’ demands and resigns.
The next in line to the presidency is Jose Williams, the president of Congress and a retired general who hails from the controversial Avanza Pais, a far-right party. He made a name for himself during the dictatorship of former President Alberto Fujimori, when he led the operation to rescue hostages held by a Marxist guerrilla group at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in 1997.
A Williams presidency, unless it led immediately to elections, could potentially act like fuel on the already raging fire of social unrest.
What would follow Boluarte’s resignation? According to constitutional experts, things could get complicated. Some say that it would invalidate the agreement moving the elections to 2024, producing “constant conflict.”
Adding to the tensions are suspicions, accusations and rumors that the protests are being deliberately stoked by the leftist governments of Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba. Those fears already led Peruvian authorities to deny entry into the country to former Bolivian President Evo Morales.
In the meantime, the crisis is crippling the economy. The vital tourism sector has been largely paralyzed after protesters shut down airports and stranded frightened travelers along the main tourist areas near Machu Pichu. Major highways remain blocked, and important mining operations have been suspended. Critical supplies are running low in some hospitals, and foreign investors are reconsidering plans to invest.
The unfathomable irony of Peru’s system is that while the government has long been utterly dysfunctional—Castillo was Peru’s sixth president in as many years—the economy has showed flashes of strength.
Despite the political chaos, the economy was actually doing rather well before the coronavirus pandemic.
It is undoubtedly true that Peru suffers from profound poverty and inequality, and that extreme poverty falls much harder on Indigenous peoples. But it is also a fact that the country had reduced poverty at an astonishing rate before the pandemic stopped progress in its tracks and sent it into reverse.
The poverty rate had declined from 55.3 percent in the early 2000s to 20.6 percent in 2019. Then came the pandemic, which hit Peru harder than any other country. The bottom fell out. Most Peruvians were once again poor—and hungry. In the midst of the health emergency, Castillo came to office promising to tackle poverty and inequality.
But he was unprepared and incompetent, and the opposition fought him every step of the way. His presidency was doomed.
The question now, with the flames still burning in the aftermath of his presidency, is whether Peruvians can fix what ails the country without destroying what was working. Peru desperately needs reforms. It must repair its dysfunctional politics, clean out corruption and develop a system that is responsive to the needs of the people. But experience in other Latin American countries has shown that efforts to eradicate poverty can easily go off the rails, taking democracy and prosperity down with them.
For Peru, the immediate danger right now is the opposite: that the current crisis takes down the country’s democracy and economy before there is a chance to once again tackle poverty.
Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist and a regular contributor to CNN and The Washington Post. Her WPR column appears every Thursday. You can follow her on Twitter at @fridaghitis.