Peru's Unpopular Politicians Are Taking the State Down With Them
Story by James Bosworth • 15h • 5 min read
An anti-government protester holds a sign in Spanish reading “Dina assassin,” in reference to President Dina Boluarte, during a demonstration in Lima, Peru, May 1, 2024 (AP photo by Martin Mejia).
Nearly all of the credible polls in Peru put President Dina Boluarte's approval ratings at less than 10 percent, among the lowest in the world for any world leader, whether democratic or authoritarian. The Peruvian Congress' public standing is even worse, with fewer than 5 percent of Peruvians supporting the institution and its members. In fact, so bad is their reputation, it is difficult to find any Peruvian citizen willing to admit he or she supports the president or Congress, making even those low numbers seem inflated.
The low approval ratings aren't new for Peru. Many of the country's recent presidents and congresses have similarly suffered from popular disavowal. The Peruvian public feels that democracy is not delivering and that politicians are corrupt and only interested in their own personal gain. This lack of public backing is one reason why prior to Boluarte, Peru had six different presidents in six years.
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Over the past year, the legislature has passed law after law systemically undermining key democratic institutions. At the behest of the party of Keiko Fujimori-daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, whose time in office in the 1990s left tens of thousands dead in a dirty war-Congress shortened the statute of limitations for criminal cases, making prosecutions of human rights abuses prior to this century no longer possible. It appointed unqualified officials to key positions, using an unfair process to appoint Constitutional Tribunal judges, installing an ombudsperson with no human rights experience and removing a top prosecutor without justification and two members of the National Board of Justice, or JNJ, on questionable grounds. Moreover, Peru's Congress has moved to eliminate the JNJ-Peru's last remaining independent check on power-altogether, transferring the appointment and removal of judges, prosecutors and electoral authorities to legislators, thereby threatening judicial independence and the legitimacy of elections.
This month, Peru's Congress seems set to pass a new law regulating NGOs that would allow the government to arbitrarily fine and even swiftly shut down organizations that are critical of government actions. The U.S., Canada and 13 European countries issued a rare joint public statement criticizing the measure, which resembles similar efforts in autocratic countries like Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Peru's legislators claim that the law is simply a regulatory measure and have taken offense at the international critique, but local NGOs believe with cause that they will be targeted for prosecution. Recent crackdowns against Peruvian journalists highlight the concerns about how this government treats civil society.
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Boluarte's scandals are almost too numerous to list, but they include questions about how she obtained a number of high-priced Rolex watches on her modest government salary as well as the fact that she quietly abandoned her functions as president for several weeks last year to receive plastic surgery without informing the public or Congress. Peru's process to remove a president is relatively swift, and previous presidents have been removed for far less. But in spite of near monthly attempts at removing her, the Congress has voted to keep Boluarte in place over and over again.
Aside from domestic politics, the other dynamic enabling Peru's institutional dysfunction is geopolitics. Washington needs allies in the region, and unlike many other governments in South America, Boluarte's has been friendly to U.S. initiatives. The U.S. feels some gratitude that Boluarte, unlike Castillo, has not joined the group of left-leaning regional leaders who are sympathetic to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Moreover, the U.S. policymaking community currently views China as its main concern in the Western Hemisphere. Just last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on "Great Power Competition in the Western Hemisphere." Against that backdrop, Washington does not want to "lose" Lima to Beijing.
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