The Peruvian Congress has impeached President Pedro Castillo and made his vice president Dina Boluarte as the new president. Castillo had tried to dissolve the Congress in a desperate and unconstitutional bid after the Congress made a third attempt to impeach him. He declared a state of emergency and announced that he would close Congress, convene a new one with powers to write a new constitution, and reorganise the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office. But the Congress convened a quick emergency session and voted by 101 votes to six, with 10 abstentions, to dismiss him. Thereafter he was arrested.
This is not a surprise. The Congress, dominated by the centre-right party of Keiko Fujimori, has been threatening impeachment since the beginning of the term of President Castillo in July 2021. The Congress had earlier made two impeachment attempts but did not get enough votes. It has been relentless in obstructing the functioning of President Castillo. They vetoed even his foreign travels in recent months.
Since Keiko Fujimori has been narrowly beaten three times in the past presidential elections, her party in the Congress keeps giving hell to the elected presidents. According to analysts, it was the anti-Keiko Fujimori sentiment that made people vote for Castillo, who was a newcomer to politics. She is still identified and stigmatised with the authoritarian and abusive rule of her father Alberto Fujimori.
Castillo is a political outsider and is naive. He was a school teacher and came from a rural poor family. He lead a teachers’ strike and that’s how he came to national attention. Castillo did not have the personal political skills nor party strength to survive the treacherous Congressional politics of Lima.
Castillo promised to give priority to rural development and address the chronic issues of inequality and poverty in the country. But he had no clue how to go about it. He did not have competent advisors or political allies to help him implement his agenda. He changed ministers several times but it did not help.
The reason for Congressional impeachment was corruption charges against President Castillo besides his attempt to dissolve the Congress in an unconstitutional way. He might have been involved in some small corruption cases but nothing serious enough to warrant an impeachment. Simply, he was not smart enough to indulge in big-time corruption. In any case, his alleged corruption is nothing in comparison to those of many members of the Congress. It is important to note that Keiko Fujimori herself faces corruption charges and was arrested and jailed for some time in 2018.
Some media commentators have accused President Castillo of having tried a coup through his attempt to dissolve the Congress. But the fact is that he was driven to the wall and had no other alternative. He would have been impeached in any case. It was just a matter of time. President Martin Vizcarra had dissolved the Peruvian Congress on September 30, 2019, when he faced a similar situation of Congressional impeachment. The Congress retaliated by refusing to recognise the president's actions and declared Vizcarra as suspended from the presidency. It named Vice President Merceds Araoz as the interim president of Peru. But she resigned later. The Congress took its revenge on Vizcarra on November 9, 2020 by impeaching and removing him from office on the grounds of "moral incapacity". Vizcarra’s successor Manuel Merino, who was the president of the Congress and the prime mover of impeachment, lasted as President just for six days.
The real presidential coup was done by Keiko’s father Fujimori on April 5, 1992 when he shut down Congress, suspended the constitution and ruled as a dictator. He changed the constitution, got reelected in 1993 and continued as president till 2001 when he was forced to resign after a huge scandal. Later he was convicted for corruption and abuses of human rights and is in jail.
Congressional impeachment is a familiar story in some of the Latin American countries. The Paraguayan Congress had impeached the politically naive Fernando Lugo in 2012 in a constitutional coup. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was yet another victim of a Congressional coup in 2016. She also paid a price for her lack of political skills. Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso has survived an attempt by opposition lawmakers to oust him in June 2022.
Dina Boluarte is the sixth president of Peru in six years since 2016. But despite the political volatility, the country’s economy is relatively stable and growing with solid macroeconomic fundamentals. It is interesting to know that the chairman of the Peruvian Central Bank Julio Emilio Velarde Flores has remained in his post for the last sixteen years since 2006 despite the frequent changes of governments.
From the country's larger perspective, the removal of President Castillo is not at all a bad development. He does not have the administrative competence or political skills to implement the political agenda for which he was elected. Nor does he have much support from the mainstream public which is disappointed with his failure to govern or deliver on his development agenda.
If he had continued, his presidency would have continued to be mired in a constant fight with the Congress. His administration would not have been able to achieve anything positive. So the country is better off without Castillo as president.
The author is an expert in Latin American affairs.
