Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Peru's President Dina Boluarte
Political drama consumes Peru, per usual
Political turmoil – seemingly a national pastime in Peru – is again rearing its ugly head. Top prosecutor Patricia Benavides is blaming President Dina Boluarte – who came to power a year ago after President Pedro Castillo was removed from office by Congress – for a number of deaths at anti-government protests.
Benavides filed a constitutional complaint this week charging Boluarte and her prime minister with first-degree murder. The complaint was filed just hours after Benavides herself faced allegations of leading a corruption ring, which prompted the attorney general to fire the prosecutor who made the accusations. The president said she was astonished by the complaint against her and suggested Benavides was attempting to distract from the corruption allegations the prosecutor is facing.
A protester interacts with police during a demonstration against Peru's President Dina Boluarte in January 2023.
Chaos is the only winner in Peru
If it seems like Peru’s last few governments can’t catch a break, you’re not far off. Peruvian governments collapse like you fall asleep: slowly ... and then all at once.
Last year’s chaos under President Pedro Castillo showed us that, and the new Dina Boluarte administration will likely suffer a similar fate. Under Castillo, a string of efforts to oust him on the basis of “moral incapacity” and criminal investigations into him and members of his inner circle chipped slowly away at his mandate for a year and a half, only for it to entirely crumble in a matter of hours. In one day, Castillo attempted to illegally dissolve Congress, got ousted by Congress, was arrested and transferred to preventive detention, and was succeeded by his vice president.
It has been two months since the chaos of Dec. 7, and Peruvians are still in political limbo. According to polls and demonstrations, most people want Boluarte and the old Congress replaced through early elections, but this is a tough ask. While there are a few possible mechanisms to move up the next election (currently scheduled for April 2026), each comes at a cost.
The road to elections. One path is for Congress to approve a constitutional reform that would bring presidential and legislative elections forward, but this requires approval from 87 of 130 lawmakers in two consecutive legislatures or from 66 along with a public referendum. Either way, that’s a lot of votes for an extremely fragmented unicameral Congress, and lawmakers have been dragging their feet on this for weeks.
After protests first erupted in December, Congress approved a plan to move up general elections by two years to April 2024. But this still needed ratification, and with protests ongoing and the death toll rising, right-wing lawmakers presented an alternative proposal to hold elections by the end of 2023 instead. This was rejected after a long debate, with some leftist lawmakers conditioning support for an early vote on an entirely new constitution (a proposal for this was also rejected), while others remained dead set on finishing out their terms until July 2026.
Impeaching Boluarte is another possible route. According to the constitution, in her absence, the president of Congress would take office and immediately call for elections. Though 26 lawmakers signed onto a motion to oust her last month, it’s difficult to see this succeeding given lawmakers’ determination to cling to their posts for as long as they can.
Then there is the nuclear option: If Congress fails to reach an agreement to move elections up and protests escalate, Boluarte may have little choice but to resign, which would trigger early elections. While she has ruled this out several times, violent protests have now claimed 59 lives, including 47 civilians in clashes with armed forces, 11 in accidents related to road blockades, and one police officer who was burned alive in his patrol car. A presidential resignation on these grounds would not be out of the ordinary; back in 2020, interim President Manuel Merino resigned after just five days in office during which anti-government protests left two people dead.
No matter which of these avenues ultimately prompts early elections, social discontent is unlikely to subside until a vote is held. The country has had six presidents since the 2016 elections, making it tough to imagine a new administration would bring much respite. Public anger precedes the current crisis and was only exacerbated by the corruption scandals involving the entire political class, the effects of the pandemic, and the ongoing conflict.
What’s more, the next election won’t be the end of the story either. The electoral field will likely be extremely fragmented – around a dozen candidates could compete with very little support or the backing of an established party. Not only does this raise the odds of at least one wildcard entering the runoff, but that candidate could easily become more competitive and ultimately win if anti-incumbency sentiment and desperation prevail. This is precisely what led to the election of Castillo, his eventual downfall, and now the crisis where we find ourselves today. Barring the approval of meaningful reforms to strengthen the country’s political system, Peruvian voters face a bleak year ahead.
So, who can get Peru out of this mess? If you’re a close watcher of Latin America, you might ask that question with some degree of trepidation as you wonder if this crisis has left a vacuum big enough for someone risky to fill. The good news is that there doesn’t seem to be someone on the horizon within the country’s political (albeit near-decimated) establishment who can garner widespread support, let alone follow through on consolidating much power. But that leaves one wondering if Peru’s democratic checks meant to prevent such power consolidation (such as term limits, bans on consecutive re-election, and a “moral incapacity” clause to impeach a president) might ultimately lead to the erosion of the very institutions they seek to preserve.
To those seeking answers, I advise you to look southward. While the problems and potential solutions in Chile and Peru are not identical, Chile’s attempt at a societal and political reckoning through a rewrite of its constitution can give us a look into simply how long and bumpy the road to stability can be. For both, it will require a process of trial and error, and likely take place over years to come.
Yael Sternberg is a Latin America expert with Eurasia Group.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
What We’re Watching: Blinken’s Middle East chats, Erdogan’s bid to split Nordics, Peru’s early election, China offers baby incentives
Blinken meets with Middle East leaders
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken picked a volatile time to visit the region. After first stopping in Egypt to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the US’ top diplomat touched down in Israel on Monday, where he took part in a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. But Blinken’s visit comes amid a violent flareup in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last week, Israel carried out an operation in Jenin in the West Bank, targeting members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in an operation that killed nine people, including civilians. Meanwhile, on Friday night, a Palestinian opened fire on Jews praying at a synagogue in East Jerusalem, killing seven. Then on Saturday, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot a father and son in Jerusalem’s Old City. What’s more, Israel is currently in the throes of a constitutional crisis as Netanyahu’s right-wing government seeks to dilute the power of the independent judiciary. But analysts say that the top agenda item is undoubtedly Iran. Over the weekend, Israel reportedly struck a compound in the Iranian city of Isfahan used to manufacture long-range missiles. (For more on the Isfahan attack and why Iran is feeling increasing pressure at home and abroad, watch Ian Bremmer’s Quick Take here.) It’s unclear whether the US was informed in advance about the strike, but Israeli leadership has in the past clashed with Washington over Jerusalem’s go-at-it-alone approach to dealing with Iran. As things become increasingly volatile in the Iran-Israel shadow war, Blinken presumably wants to make sure that the US is kept in the loop. On Tuesday, Blinken will meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's opposition leader Yair Lapid.
Finland sticks with Sweden, despite Erdoğan’s wedge
Many thought Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession bid was all sewn up last summer. But it requires approval from all 30 bloc members, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now says he is willing only to greenlight Finland’s bid. Erdoğan’s decision to hold out on Sweden comes in the wake of outcry over a protest in Stockholm where a Quran was burned earlier this month. Despite speculation that Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer (810-mile) border with Russia, might proceed without Sweden, Finland’s foreign minister said otherwise on Monday. He explained that his country is willing to wait until the Swedish issue is resolved thanks to security assurances from the US and Britain. In exchange for NATO membership, Erdoğan has also demanded the two countries hand over scores of Turkish and Kurdish dissidents and stop more Erdoğan critics from seeking refuge there. Expect this standoff, which is helping Erdoğan whip up nationalist fervor at home, to continue until Turkey’s presidential election on May 14.
Will Peruvians vote this year?
Peru's Congress on Monday voted to reconsider holding an early election in October to help end violent protests that broke out after former President Pedro Castillo was impeached and removed in December 2022. So far, at least 58 people have died in the rallies, the majority of them Indigenous people from Peru's rural highlands who support Castillo. If the early election proposal is voted down, current President Dina Boluarte will likely present her own plan, which would also call for a first-round vote in October and a runoff in November. If that fails and the protests continue, Boluarte might just cave to the protesters by resigning, which would force the Congress president to call an immediate election, as mandated by the constitution. Confused? So are we. The bigger questions are whether angry Peruvians can wait several months to vote before the situation gets out of control, and what happens if it does. The only thing we do know is that 60% of Peruvians want elections ASAP and a whopping 89% of them resent how Congress is handling the crisis.
One Chinese province tries for more babies
For the first time since the 1960s, China’s population shrank in 2022, setting off alarm bells that its one-child policy (in place from 1980-2015) created a looming demographic crisis that will stunt the country’s economic growth and force older Chinese into poverty. With fewer young people to support the elderly in a country with a still underdeveloped social safety net, public officials are now scrambling for ways to encourage citizens to make more babies. Another sign of the times: Sichuan, home to more than 80 million people, has become the latest province to allow unmarried couples to register children to receive health benefits. (Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, has made similar changes. The city of Shanghai offered these reforms in 2021 before rescinding them within weeks.) The change, effective February 15, will allow unmarried women and men to register with local authorities to receive insurance to cover child-related medical bills and to keep their salaries during maternity leave. The debate within China that pits economic imperatives against family values has only begun to heat up.
Somalia appoints former al Shabaab spokesperson as minister in Mogadishu
What We're Watching: Somalia's new cabinet, takeaways from US primaries, Peru's president in peril
Somalia appoints former al-Shabab militant to cabinet
Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre has named former al-Shabab spokesperson, Muktar Robow, as Somalia’s minister for endowment and religious affairs. A veteran of the Afghan war, who was training with al-Qaida in Afghanistan during 9/11, Robow helped found al-Shabab, which is fighting to overthrow the Somali government in a bid to invoke a strict interpretation of Sharia law. The militants have killed tens of thousands since 2007, and they’ve recently been involved in cross-border attacks in Ethiopia. Robow (aka Abu Mansour), who once had a $5 million bounty on his head, broke from the al-Qaida-linked militants back in 2017. Arrested by Somali authorities in 2018 to prevent him from running for office, Robow had been under house arrest in Mogadishu until last year, when he was taken back into custody. This week, he was released just before his new role was announced. As the new face of Somalia’s war against al-Shabab, Robow is tasked with helming the ideological battle against the terrorists. Some believe this will strengthen the government’s hand against al-Shabab, but critics fear it could lead to sectarian violence.
Key takeaways from US primaries
Five US states – Arizona, Missouri, Michigan, Washington, and Kansas – held primaries on Tuesday, giving an indication of the public mood in parts of the country just 12 weeks out from midterm elections. So, what happened? Trump-aligned candidates did pretty well. In Michigan, Rep. Peter Meijer – a freshman and one of just a handful of Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump – was defeated by an extreme pro-Trumper who has spread conspiracy theories (read lies) that Dems engaged in satanic rituals. In Arizona’s nail-biter GOP gubernatorial primary, Keri Lake, a Trump-backed TV presenter who propagates the former president’s lies about election fraud, was polling ahead of her rival with more than 80% of ballots counted. A slate of other Trump-aligned candidates also won primaries throughout the Grand Canyon state. Some Democrats will be happy with these outcomes, believing that far-right candidates will be easier to beat in battleground states this fall, but others have been critical of the strategy. Meanwhile, in Kansas, abortion-rights supporters were celebrating after 59% of voters rejected an amendment to the State Constitution to allow the state to regulate – or ban – abortion. High turnout in the Sunflower State suggests that abortion rights could indeed be an energizing issue for Democrats this fall.
Peru’s president in peril
Amid widening criminal investigations centered on President Pedro Castillo, Prime Minister Anibal Torres quit on Wednesday. Torres, a longtime Castillo ally, said he just wanted to go back to a quiet life of “legal research.” The resignation is the latest crumble of the cookie for Castillo, an upstart leftwing populist who stunned the country by winning the presidency last year, but who has been beset by scandals, missteps, and a fractious Congress since taking office. He is currently under investigation for alleged treason and for running a criminal enterprise from the presidential palace. Small wonder that his approval rating has plunged to below 20%, and our friends at Eurasia Group say it’s “only a matter of time” before lawmakers force him out. If this sounds topsy turvy, it is, but it’s also not unusual for Peru, where political parties are plentiful but weak, and presidents rarely have solid majorities in the legislature. The country went through a period in 2020 where there were three different presidents in the space of a month.President Pedro Castillo during the appointment of the new Prime Minister, Aníbal Torres.
New president falls victim to Peru’s messy politics
A series of scandals and resignations have forced Peruvian President Pedro Castillo to shuffle his cabinet four times in his first six months in office. Lawmakers have already tried to impeach him once. Though his latest cabinet shuffle could bring some respite, Castillo is not out of the woods yet — and may never be. Why all the turmoil? We asked Eurasia Group analyst Yael Sternberg.
Why is Castillo having so much trouble?
The most obvious reasons are that Castillo lacks experience, a clear ideology, and the ability to attract and retain talent. A former schoolteacher and union leader, Castillo was only loosely associated with his Peru Libre party until last year’s election, and his platform was written not by him but rather by Marxist party leader Vladimir Cerron. Castillo’s candidacy originated as somewhat of a compromise after the National Jury of Elections ruled Cerron couldn’t run because of a past corruption conviction. Because of this, Castillo’s success in the first round surprised many people, probably even Peru Libre party leaders, and it was not until the lead-up to the second round that Castillo started to put together a plan and team. After beating Keiko Fujimori, a three-time presidential candidate and daughter of imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori, by a narrow margin in a very polarized race, we knew Castillo would struggle to chart a policy course that could please all the necessary stakeholders. So far, he has found himself at odds with both the more radical faction of his own party, as well as with business leaders and investors, all while trying to survive a standoff with a confrontational congress where he lacks a majority.
What might happen next?
Newly appointed Prime Minister Anibal Torres — whose predecessor resigned over domestic abuse allegations — now has 30 days to appear before congress and request a vote of confidence. Though there are several parties that have threatened to veto Castillo’s cabinets in the past, lawmakers ultimately provided them with votes of confidence. They will likely do so again in this case to avoid triggering a series of events that could lead to them losing their jobs. According to the constitution, the president can dissolve congress if it has denied the cabinet a vote of confidence twice, as occurred under former president Martin Vizcarra in 2019. If this were to occur, not only would protests surely emerge, but a new electoral field would not solve the problems facing this congress or administration, as a new body would be formed primarily by newcomers to politics without experience, strong affiliations to their parties, or strong ideological commitments.
How about impeachment?
A restive congress will probably continue to look for ways to obstruct and oust Castillo. Yet the path of impeachment also presents risks for lawmakers. If they try again and succeed in marshaling enough votes to impeach the president, Vice President Dina Boluarte will take office. But then if she were to resign or be ousted too, the president of congress would take office and need to call snap elections. The challenge here is that the constitution does not specify whether these elections would apply to the presidency only, or if they would include legislative elections, creating yet another risk of lawmakers losing their jobs. Boluarte seems to be backing Castillo at this point by suggesting she would go too if he is ousted, but there’s always a danger she could reach a deal with lawmakers not to resign if they impeach him and she becomes president.
Peru has had five presidents in five years – what accounts for this broader instability?
It hasn’t been an easy decade for Peruvians. In addition to political turmoil, the country has had the highest number of Covid-19 deaths per capita at various points and been scarred by continuous corruption scandals. The relationship between the presidency and congress has devolved into a protracted standoff, given the permanent threat that each side could oust the other at any moment. Changes of administration do nothing to relieve the tensions because of a serious fragmentation of the country’s party system. The big problem in Peruvian politics is that there are no parties really left, only groups who share some ideas and goals for the moment. This is part of the reason why it has been so difficult for Castillo and other party leaders to build coalitions in congress and why the last election was so difficult to predict.
Are there parallels between the situation in Peru and in other countries of the region?
Yes. Costa Rica’s first-round presidential election earlier this month saw an unprecedented number of candidates registered, which contributed to massive voter indecisiveness. The political situation there is by no means the same as in Peru, especially given Costa Rica’s peaceful and robust democratic history. Yet party fragmentation and abandonment are real risks in the region, along with voter discontent and incumbents being punished in the polls.
Yael Sternberg is a researcher on the Latin America desk at Eurasia Group.