Peru’s long-running political crisis finally came to a climax on 7 December when President Pedro Castillo, just hours before deputies were scheduled to subject him to a third impeachment vote, announced to the nation that he was temporarily dissolving congress, calling fresh legislative elections, and reorganising the judiciary. Thirty years ago President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) carried out just such a self-coup, but he sent a tank to the steps of congress. It swiftly transpired that Castillo lacked any military or institutional support and he was disowned by his cabinet. Deputies duly impeached him, and he was arrested by his own security detail leaving the presidential palace. Vice-President Dina Boluarte, who had condemned the coup attempt, was sworn-in by congress, promising to replace the confrontational politics of the last 18 months with a more conciliatory approach.
His hands visibly trembling while clutching some papers, President Castillo announced in a televised national broadcast that he had decided to form “a government of exception aimed at re-establishing the rule of law and democracy”, requiring that he “temporarily” dissolve congress and rule by decree until legislative elections could be held to form a new congress, which would have the powers of a constituent assembly to draw up a new constitution within nine months. Castillo also announced the reorganisation of the judiciary and the attorney general’s office, which recently presented a constitutional complaint against him to congress for leading a criminal organisation, influence peddling, and collusion.
Peru has been here before. President Fujimori took the same steps in 1992 but his autogolpe succeeded because he was assured of the support of the military. Without military backing this unconstitutional venture was doomed from the outset. The commander of the army, Walter Córdova, unexpectedly resigned just hours before Castillo’s address, creating a degree of uncertainty, but the joint command of the armed forces and national police responded to the head of state’s dissolution of congress rapidly by issuing a statement saying that they would uphold the constitutional order. This spelt out, for those in any doubt, that the president could only dissolve congress in the event of two rejected votes of confidence and that they would deem anything else to be unconstitutional and would not support it.
It is difficult to fathom what Castillo was thinking. While his political inexperience and improvisation has been repeatedly exposed since he came to power in July 2021, he had succeeded in keeping congress at bay; surviving, though not thriving, veering erratically from promises of unity and consensus-building to confrontation and brinkmanship. Deputies had twice previously failed to muster the requisite two-thirds majority of 87 in the 130-seat congress to impeach him on the grounds of “permanent moral incapacity” and, while the third vote threatened to be closer, it still looked like falling short. But in announcing the dissolution of congress, in incontrovertible contravention of the constitution, Castillo brought about the very outcome he had sought to forestall: his own demise.
Political hara-kiri
Moderate leftist deputies who had stuck by Castillo to this point promptly deserted him after he announced the dissolution of congress, as did six deputies from the radical left-wing Perú Libre (PL) which brought him to power. Congress brought forward the vote and Castillo was impeached by a thumping majority of 102-6 (with 10 abstentions and 12 deputies who either did not or could not vote). The constitutional tribunal swiftly confirmed the legitimacy of the vote.
Castillo might have felt the need to act assuming the end was nigh. When congress voted on 1 December to approve the holding of the impeachment vote, the PL had not stood united behind Castillo. But this was most likely tactical and designed to extract some concessions. Vladimir Cerrón, the PL party president, pointedly tweeted after Castillo’s attempted self-coup that he had acted “precipitately” as there were insufficient votes for impeachment to prosper.
Congress had only decided to make a third attempt at impeaching Castillo after his new prime minister, Betssy Chávez, dangled the threat of dissolving congress on 27 November [WR-22-48]. Before that right-wing and centrist deputies were trying to turn the screw on Castillo by slowly proceeding with constitutional complaints against him, which could have seen him suspended by a simple majority. But the constitutional tribunal had thrown out one of these (a flimsy accusation of treason based on remarks Castillo made to CNN in January over granting Bolivia sovereign access to the sea) and the other one, presented by the attorney general, Patricia Benavides, while much more substantial [WR-22-41], stood on dubious constitutional grounds because corruption is not one of the four offences for which a sitting president can stand trial.
There were also indications that Castillo’s opponents in congress were contemplating playing fast and loose with the constitution, removing him from office by declaring his “temporary incapacity” in accordance with Article 114, which requires just a simple majority of 66. This would also have created a dangerous precedent for future presidents, as it is only designed to be applied in specific cases, such as an accident, and envisages the return of the president to power.
Castillo’s pre-emptive strike sealed his fate. Prominent cabinet ministers, such as Economy and Finance Minister Kurt Burneo and Foreign Affairs Minister César Landa, wasted little time in tendering their resignations, emphatically distancing themselves from Castillo. “I strongly condemn this coup d’état and call on the international community to assist in the democratic re-establishment of democracy in Peru,” Landa tweeted. “Castillo took this decision without my knowledge or support.”
Peru’s ambassador to the US, Oswaldo de Rivero, resigned, as did the country’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Harold Forsyth, both citing the rupture of the constitutional order. Just a week earlier the OAS had sent a mission to Peru at Castillo’s behest after he urged it to invoke the Inter-American Democratic Charter to safeguard Peru’s democracy [WR-22-47], accusing opponents of seeking to unseat him in “a new type of coup”. In the event, it was Castillo, not congress, who resorted to a coup attempt to subvert democracy.
Just the day beforehand, speaking during the 34th anniversary of the formation of the national police, an event attended, inter alia, by Attorney General Benavides and the president of congress, José Williams, Castillo had accused his opponents of wanting “to dynamite democracy”. He had also once again appealed to congress not to “drag the country into chaos and crisis”, instead calling for unity to “deliver the development for which Peru has been yearning for so long”. “Let’s be reasonable,” he added, “and not repeat the chapter of past histories…set hatred and political confrontation aside”. But despite his repeated exhortations for dialogue, he did nothing to facilitate it.
The following day, Castillo opted to end the confrontation by dissolving congress, encouraged, it appears, by his new prime minister, Betssy Chávez, and her adviser (and predecessor in the job), Aníbal Torres. Within hours, isolated and alone, he left the presidential palace but he was escorted by his own security detail to a police station in Lima, where he was photographed sitting on a sofa reading a magazine, an ignominious end to his tumultuous presidency. He was later transferred to the Barbadillo prison in the headquarters of the special operations unit of the national police (Diroes) in Lima, with the charge of “rebellion” added to the corruption charges already stacked up against him.
First female president
Castillo’s departure ends a chaotic 16 months in power, with five different prime ministers, scores of cabinet ministers, many of whom were removed before they had got close to coming to grips with challenging portfolios, all under the spectre of corruption. In accordance with the established constitutional succession, the vice president, Dina Boluarte, was sworn-in by congress as president, becoming, in the process, Peru’s first female head of state. She has kept a low-profile for the most part but stood by Castillo during previous impeachment attempts. She abandoned him, however, after his attempted self-coup, denouncing “a rupture of the constitutional order”.
After being sworn-in by congress, Boluarte said that “a coup d’état has taken place that found no echo in [Peru’s] democratic institutions or on the streets”. Boluarte will hope to start from a clean slate. She appealed for “a political truce”, saying that it was “time to rescue our country from corruption and misgovernance”. She said her overriding priority would be “to confront corruption in all of its obscene dimensions”.
Boluarte’s conciliatory tone will ensure that congress affords her some time, with most deputies relieved to see the back of Castillo, but whether she will manage to see out the remaining three-and-a-half years of his term is debateable. A lawyer with no prior political experience, she will have no support base in congress. There is recent precedent for this in Peru. When President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) was impeached, his vice-president, Martín Vizcarra, who had no support base in congress, took over. Vizcarra became more powerful and far more popular than Kuczynski, standing up to congress, which he eventually dissolved (constitutionally) in 2019 before he too was impeached by the newly elected congress in 2020.
In the absence of a political party behind her, Boluarte might be tempted to take a leaf out of Vizcarra’s book and seek popular support to pressure congress into accepting her legislative agenda. Castillo tried a similar approach, but with limited competence and while dogged by corruption. With greater political acuity, Boluarte, who until recently had served as development and social inclusion minister, could exploit the unpopularity of congress, which was less popular than Castillo. He was only elected because of entrenched disillusionment and distrust of the established political class. This remains. It is customary for Peruvian presidents to see their approval ratings sink towards and even into single digits, but Castillo retained 31% support in a recent survey (and 45% in rural areas). Congress, by contrast, had an approval rating of 10% and disapproval rating of 86%.
International reaction
President Castillo’s actions were condemned to varying degrees by heads of state of different political stripes across the region, with the most notable exception being Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. López Obrador accused “political and economic elites” in Peru of having forced Castillo to “take decisions” that led to his downfall. Castillo was apparently trying to make his way to the Mexican embassy in Lima to seek asylum before his arrest. The secretary general of the OAS, Luis Almagro, said that “Castillo’s dissolution of congress without constitutional grounds constitutes an alteration of the constitutional order”.
Regional elections
The second round of Peru’s regional elections was held on 4 December. Only eight of the 25 regional governorships went to a second round. Somos Perú was the big winner. Having secured two regional governorships in the first round, it won a further five in the second round. In addition to defeating the populist right-of-centre Alianza Para el Progreso (APP) in the northern region of Lambayeque, the traditional centre-right Somos Perú won eye-catching victories in President Castillo’s native region of Cajamarca (where it took some 70% of the vote against a local outfit), the southern regions of Cusco and Moquegua (which had been Castillo strongholds), and Pasco. The regional governorships of Lima, Amazonas, and Piura were won by local parties.
